In 2021 I began to dissect my lifelong problem of severe procrastination, instead of just wrestling with it.
I used to see it as a simple character flaw, a ball and chain hanging from my wrist as I tried to fulfil life’s requirements. Now I think of my capacity for getting things done (or not) more as a semi-functional Rube Goldberg machine. Instead of metal chutes and springs, its parts are interconnected habits. It runs smoothly in some places, gets hung up in others, and all of the parts can be studied, understood, and adjusted.
One thing that helped a lot was distilling my observations about the machine into a dozen or so single-sentence “laws” that describe how productivity and procrastination seem to work, at least for me.
It was intended to be a personal reference, taped to the wall near my desk, but every time I look at it I realize other procrastinators could benefit from some of it.
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I'm David, and Raptitude is a blog about getting better at being human -- things we can do to improve our lives today.
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