Battling Contentment: My Journey to Overcoming Procrastination

The last two days, I haven’t gotten much done. I slept for 17 hours on Thursday. I broke my streak of learning on pluralsight. I didn’t spend much time on developing my portfolio or marketplace nor on pursuing any resolution to my lack of income.

And that’s not okay.

Lately, I’ve had a weird schedule. That’s actually pretty normal for me, but recently it’s gotten a bit out of hand. Normally, I’ll wake up at a different time each day, but I maintain a ratio that’s similar to the average person, with more time awake than asleep.

However, the last week or so, I’ve been awake for 12 hours and then sleeping for 12 hours. And within the last 2 days, I’ve spent a decent amount of time watching TV with my boyfriend. More than I’m okay with.

So, this morning I woke up at 1:30 am and I made a commitment to stay up until at least 9 pm since I want to normalize my schedule. It’s 1:36 pm right now, so… so far, so good.

Then I settled in and I thought about what I needed to do today. I spent some time reflecting, some time planning, some time relaxing. Before I knew it, it was morning.

I knew, at this point, I needed to start by cleaning my office. I sat with myself, having my to do list jotted down, and asked myself why I wasn’t speeding through it as my younger self would have. I know I didn’t have the same energy, but there were other layers too.

I knew I wanted to start with cleaning — a simple and refreshing task to start with — but I couldn’t lift myself up and there’s wasn’t really any negative feeling holding me back, just an emptiness.

So I tried something different. Instead of focusing on what I needed to clean, I just spent a few minutes imagining what my office would look and feel like once clean. I didn’t try to remove any negative, because there wasn’t one.

I’ve been battling with depression for a long time. I’ve been taking Lexapro for the past month. I’m not sure if it helps. I know I need to also be in therapy, but my health and dental insurance is about to default due to lack of payment. So I have to fight with what I have and that is self therapy. My prescription is about to expire, so I need to be prepared for a withdrawal and I need to be hyper-vigilant about self check-ins.

But the core of depression (in many people, not necessarily all) is a lack of purpose. I so frequently forget that I need to be giving myself a sense of purpose, a vision, constantly.

If I’m being honest with myself, I don’t need the to do list. I can ask myself at any time “what’s the next thing you need to work on?” and I know the answer. What I do need is to regularly envision what each and every task means for me. That’s the part that is easy to forget. It’s easy to forget how beautiful your future looks once something is done, but it’s not easy to escape the stress of to dos that are playing on loop in your mind. You don’t need a to do list because your worries are making one for you.

So this morning I started by imagining my room clean.

I cleaned my office more than I have in the past year.

Then I imagined having an income — anything — and being freed from the stress of my bills stacking up unpaid.

I applied to work at our local Barnes and Noble. I asked my mom if I could borrow $250 for my car bill, and I paid it once the money came in.

I finally feel like I’m on the upswing, and contrary to popular opinion, it’s not because of a to-do list. It’s actually in spite of to-do lists.

I’m not lazy. I’m quite incredibly hard-working. I’m realizing that my problem is that I don’t want for much. When I fail to follow through on things, it’s because I’m a simple hoomin and I feel content as I am with what I have, a simple life, and sometimes I actually have trouble wanting for more. I don’t have that hunger inside me.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m ambitious in ways, but I’m also content.

That’s a big part of what gets in my way.