As some of you know, the holidays can be a stressful time and procrastination typically isn’t far behind. Family comes over or you’re going to your family. You might not even have family. Maybe you have family and you want nothing to do with them. Being conscious of that can raise your heart rate.
Now maybe, family life is glorious and being with them brings you joy. You still have to work. You might be employed in a corporate infrastructure, or be a government employee, or healthcare, retail, or work independently. It doesn’t help if your unemployed during the holidays. The holidays at the end of the year makes all these vertical markets move in specific ways that amplify stress to record levels. At times, it can feel that you’re being pushed to new levels. If you had to choose between being pushed to new levels of stress or success, what would you choose? I made a decision to reach new levels in success.
I am an author first. I have a job that pays me so I can live and eat and all of that survival stuff. So, being an author and working at my job is on equal standing. I go to work everyday, so I write everyday. But what do people do during the holidays to combat procrastination?
I think sometimes we can live in this extraordinary world where the rules can be broken and keep going like you have a cheat code for unlimited health and strength and invincibility. Sadly, our domain is made up of rules and we adhere to it wether you want to admit or not. You get tired and during the holidays, you get exhausted. You have your regular day, that’s not a walk in the park and then there’s balancing your checkbook, buying gifts, planning dinner for family and possibly extended family, and then trimmings that make the holidays not just perfect, but memorable. That’s just plain hard.
Here’s a list of things I did to battle procrastination over the holidays:
- Saying No: For me, it was like that. I had learned to say no to some things. Not just no, but an emphatic no. No guilt felt in my statement. My energy I have throughout the day is finite. I choose not to spend it on feeling guilty over what people want me to do.
- Remembering the Goal: I am an author. If you’re not getting paid, sometimes authorship can take a backseat. Putting your passion in the backseat isn’t bad, but you can forget that it’s back there. Looking at your goals or reciting your goals daily has been a great help for me.
- Rest: I have a lot of things I do during the day. I typically wake up 5 am every morning. Holidays require a lot of extra strength just to stay up. It’s absolutely not bad to take a nap or sleep a little more. In this reality, you need a recharge.
- Get Happy: sometimes I legitimately forget that the holidays were my favorite time growing up. In this reality happiness is legitimate for survival. What have you done to get happy lately? Watch that comedy special. Play that game. Read that book. Walk through that trail. Laugh with that friend. Just get happy.
- List the Good Things: is it me or when I skip an important task I beat myself up over it? No? This step is linked to number 2. But it’s easy to dwell on the things you didn’t do or screwed up on, but you did some things right. If I had to choose to dwell on the good or the bad, I choose the good. To quote Rhomman Dey from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy: “Well, I don’t believe anyone is 100% a dick, ma’am.
So that’s it. My list for what I did to battle procrastination. Hope this helped. Share. Like. Comment. Expect a new shirt for Rockland’s 52 next week.
Jace Rockland 