Procrastination

Normally I am not one for procrastination. I am more of a “get it done” type of person.

1. Choosing a gravestone.

As most of you know, my Mom passed away a little over two years ago. I have yet to get a gravestone for her. In my defense, the family plot where she is buried has fieldstones, rather than granite gravestones for markers. The tradition is that we get a stone from where my father grew up and use that for the gravestone. Well, aside from the fact that I don’t live close to this place, there are also no more stones there. You see the conundrum.

I had a lovely conversation with one of my cousins, who lives where my father grew up and she had a few excellent suggestions. One: use the same stone as my father’s and add to the plaque or Two: see if the person who did the other gravestones has access to field stones. In my defense, I had been thinking along those lines as well, I just didn’t get around to doing anything about it.

I called the stone mason and had a nice conversation with him. He is going to the cemetery and check out my father’s stone to see if it is big enough for two names. He also has access to fieldstones. So problem solved. That was easy and all it took was two phone calls. Now why didn’t I do this sooner?

2. Cleaning out the garage.

My best friend Lisa is in the process of cleaning out her parents’ house. It is a daunting task. Well yesterday she called me on the phone and asked me if I was bored. She wanted me to come over and help motivate her to clean out her garage. I never pass up a chance to see Lisa, she is a riot. So over to her house I went. Needless to say we spent more time talking than cleaning, but we did manage to get a few garbage bags full of stuff.

Anyway, my lessons learned from all of this were:

a. Sometimes a task seems too big to tackle. All you need to do is take a small step to get started and you may just surprise yourself.

b. Ask a friend to help. Cleaning out the garage is not the most fun thing to do on a Sunday afternoon, but Lisa and I had a blast. 🙂

What about you? What steps have you taken to overcome procrastination?

Procrastination picture from Procrastination Group on Facebook.