Procrastination

Spanish has a saying, "Obra empezada, media acabada"....a work that is begun is half done. But how hard it is to begin!

When I returned from my last BER seminars in March, I put the suitcase containing all my FCK (BER's code for one seminar) "stuff" on the table in the basement.

From about February until today I piled any BER related thing I "wanted to deal with later" on the desk in the basement: new ideas, contracts, ideas from websites or teachers, articles, corrections, etc. It became a prodigious pile!

Every week since March I have dutifully written "Unpack FCK" and "make book changes" on my to-do list, but every week something has gotten in the way. Yes, many necessary things get in the way of working on BER: visits to my mother, food shopping, the house, the laundry, the family, the call committee, preparing for and teaching Art classes, exercise, hand bells and choir. Somehow I've also magically found time to spend three days in Michigan, shop for clothes, plan the Paris trip, work with the evil Rosetta Stone, have dinner with friends, attend concerts, and write this blog. Those activities, however, have not taken up every available time slot....in fact there have been many hours of available time. Have I even gone to the basement? No! Have I read every inch of the paper, played computer Scrabble, taken naps, watched stupid TV, repeatedly checked e-mail, or told myself I'd start BER stuff tomorrow? Yes!

Now deadlines are coming up. Revisions to both handbooks are due by September 1 and I want to make substantial revisions to both seminars.....not an insignificant task.

So today I ran out of excuses and actually ventured into the basement. In less than 1 1/2 hours I got all the presentation materials returned to their plastic bins, made neat piles of materials for both seminars, tossed or filed all sorts of miscellaneous papers, printed the new handbook guidelines, and even changed an ink cartridge. I'm good to go.

Obra empezada, media acabada. It took no time to get organized....I'm half way there!

I WILL find the basement again tomorrow. No Ojos que no ven, corazon que no siente (Out of sight, out of mind) for this procrastinator!

No, it will be Más vale tarde que nunca. Better late than never.

Hmmmm.....seems all these sayings exisit in some form in most languages. Could it be that I'm not the only procrastinator in the world?