It’s funny (ha ha ha) how projects can be looming over your head, but still feel like they’re in the distant future. Then, quite suddenly, a decision or two brings everything crashing forward to the top of the To Do list. The timeline changes from Now – Soon – Later to Immediately – Yesterday – Last Week.
It’s easy to feel panicky and immobilized when trying to figure out where to begin to tackle the mountains of work we’ve been procrastinating on for so long, but then I remember the Benjamin Franklin saying, “If you want something done, ask a busy person.” So how do busy people get things done? They write out their tasks, breaking them down into smaller chunks that they then prioritize and work through methodically, one at a time.
Multitasking can be a great skill, but I usually find myself doing a mediocre job of a lot of things and not really finishing any task, which then leads to that feeling of disappointment and a game of solitaire on the phone or a glass of wine and the Italian Film Festival movie. How can we buckle down and get on task? One way is to ask friends and family to come over and help. It would be rude to ask for someone’s precious time and then not be ready to utilize it wisely. It would also be a waste of a great chance to be able to cross things off the To Do list. Admittedly, this can also lead to a glass of wine and sushi takeout in the park with minimal accomplishment, but hey, we’re moving soon and need to maximize quality time together, right?
Last January, I asked my childhood friend Amy, who has an online biz called Vintage Kitchen Foundry (and VKF Menagerie), to come over and look at some of the items we are needing to sell. Amy’s entire business is out of her house, with warehouse shelves chock full of inventory. When we told her our plan, she said she so wanted to move to Vermont, but there was no way she could ever move all her inventory. We said, “Yes you can, we’ll help you! We’re manifesting and we know you can do whatever you want.” Fast forward 14 months; Amy has only four more banana boxes of inventory to pack and will be loading her moving trucks and driving away at the end of April. Not only did we all manifest her move, we’re getting her out of St. Louis before we move ourselves! And here we are, still saddled with a houseful of belongings to sell, give away or pack up. Seeing Amy tackle her difficult move should make our move look easy, but somehow, I still get paralyzed by COL (Cat On Lap) as often as possible…
Ask someone else, I’m busy.