As my father likes to say:

“Take that mental health day before it takes you.”

Of course, it didn’t feel so much like a mental health day as an “I really, really, really don’t want to get a cold” day, but these tend to be more closely related than we’d like.

And granted, any advice from my father is a tad suspect …

Obviously when a super-biggified “expert” screws up, it’s way more entertaining than when other people do. And god knows we all need someone else to slip on a banana peel once in a while or we’d never feel good about anything.

There are two ways we get support. Or anything, for that matter.

We have internal resources (thoughts, emotions, strengths, energy, ideas, epiphanies, concepts, reassurances, trust) …

… and we also have external resources (people we know, experts, authorities, information, even a higher power — if you believe in one — could be considered an external resource).

Working on your relationship to TIME sounds kind of a lot of …. work. Which, I have to say, is not really all that appealing.

But it’s not like you and time need to go to couples counseling together. It’s not like you need to start spicing things up …. like opening the door to time while wearing only plastic wrap.

There’s a giant semi-annoying cliche in the world of people who talk about time-management and productivity stuff: we need to make better use of our time.

The experts and biggifiers love to tell us about how we all have the same twenty four hours in the day which means, apparently, that some of us (them) make better use of these hours than the rest of us (us).

Apparently — and we’ll talk some other time about why you need other people to take care of your customer support email — I missed Anti-Procrastination Day.
Apparently, as an expert on the topic who has written an entire book on Dissolving Procrastination, I could have taken the opportunity to say something smart and anti-procrastination-ish [...]

I have been avoiding my homework.

And yeah, that’s not something you generally want to hear from a procrastination expert.

I have a sort-of excuse. Two sort-of excuses. For one thing, I didn’t realize it was “homework”, and for another, I didn’t realize I was avoiding it. Hear me out.

Yes, well. My month in Berlin is coming to a close. Which is something that I also sense instinctively without having to look at the calendar, because:

Ninja German skills and a mad rush to make appointments? Clearly my plane’s about to take off!

There’s nothing like a case of phone call dread. Just to be clear, I’m not talking about general “I
have no time” stuff or even about your average low-grade procrastination avoidance situation. Also assuming this isn’t about some peculiar phone phobia of yours that kicks in whenever you have to push buttons or something.

This is when you’re dealing with one specific sticky and uncomfortable interaction that you just don’t want anything to do with. For whatever reason, this one is loaded.

Hey! The way you’re trying to motivate yourself: totally not working.
We all know the “hey, look, I’m not doing that thing I said I’d do” feeling pretty well. And yeah, it’s not fun. When that sinking feeling shows up, you start looking for something that you think will “motivate” you. Something to push you harder so you can get in gear and get that thing done already.
Unfortunately, you (and by you I mean probably you but really, uh, me and everyone else I know) tend to choose ways to motivate yourself that aren’t very good for you. Even worse, it might sorta kinda feel like they work, so you keep using them.