Don’t Procrastinate! Just Don’t Do It!

What do you dread even more than the top item on your To Do list?

You have our To Do List, but then you have your No, I Really Need to Do These Things List.

Following in the footsteps of Bad Blogging Advice, here’s some bad productivity advice, “Don’t procrastinate about the job you haven’t done any longer! Just wipe it off your list completely! Don’t even think about it! Stop fretting that you won’t get it done! Just DON’T do it! There. Solved. You’re welcome.”

It’s the old adage, “Hmm, honey, why is the house so clean? Is it tax time?” In other words, you hate doing taxes so much that you’d rather clean up the house than do your tax prep.

I’m currently stuck on catching up on bookkeeping. I’m actually quite a good bookkeeper (my previous bookkeeper even told me so). I just don’t do it very often. I don’t bill clients, I don’t even send invoices, I have to be reminded to even send a downpayment request. Maybe it’s, ahem, artiste in me that doesn’t want to taint my art with such piddly subjects as invoicing and balance sheets. But seeing that I, ahem, don’t have a bookkeeper, Mr. Artiste needs to do his books too or I’m going to be the artiste on the street corner.

• Pulled weeds in the backyard.
• Washed up camping cookware (last time we were camping was 6 weeks ago … it’s been sitting on the deck since).
• Scrubbed deck (see note about camping gear … ).

Does it get any lower on the priority list? Seriously, pulling weeds? Yes, it needs to be done, but I’m not going to get paid, I’m going to lose clients, I’m going to look like I’m unorganized and unprofessional. Oh wait, I am unorganized and unprofessional.

So why won’t I hire a bookkeeper? “Because I can do it myself.” Aha, key word being can, but there’s an important factor missing: I can do it, but I don’t actually do it. What gives?

How to get that thing done? Do the thing you like even less.