Beginnings

So after two and a half weeks of looking at this little post-it on my desk telling me to "Blog... 'beginnings'?" every day, I have finally sat down to do as I'm told (even if it was me doing the telling).

As a student I have become a master of the art of procrastination, and believe me, it is an art. You start the day with this nice neat list of tasks that need doing, like going food shopping and studying, and somehow you end up doing the shopping, reading a book, watching a film and meeting your friends for coffee but not the studying, even though it's the most important thing on the list.

The feelings of guilt that we generate by procrastinating an important task often actually seem to reinforce our desire to procrastinate, and so a cycle of guilt starts following us around until we actually cave in and do something about whatever it is we're not doing.

The culprit, at least in my case, is my impulsiveness to do something fun like watch a film, go for a walk or make something extra delcious to eat. Since prioritisation doesn't seem to work very well in the face of an especially strong desire to procrastinate, I think the time has come to attempt to master our impulsiveness - to harness it to immediate effect for those tasks that seem less interesting or aren't as fun as the things we would prefer to spend our time doing. Of course, that's usually easier said than done.

It might be a never-ending battle, but at least once you finally begin the end moves into your line of sight and starts to get a little closer all the time. You just need to make your move.