Thoughts on Sunday: Stop Saying Tomorow

If I've already established that I need to stop saying "I'll try" and just do it, the latest bone I have to pick with myself, it's constantly promising myself that things will get done...tomorrow.

• I'll do the washing up...tomorrow.
• I'll organise my make up drawer...tomorrow.
• I'll write up that blogpost...tomorrow.
• I'll plan that trip I've been thinking about...tomorrow.
• I'll do everything I've ever wanted...tomorrow.

Pushed to the extreme, constantly saying tomorrow means that you end up doing nothing that isn't assorted with a deadline. If the rubbish disposal service didn't come around every Wednesday, I'm not entirely sure when the bins would go out. If I had to organise my entire academic program myself, I'd probably still be coasting somewhere around the first year of secondary school.

It's procrastination at it's finest, but it translates to procrastinating on life if everything you want to do, you want to do...tomorrow.

I've been having an odd week. I have the house to myself and a lot of free time, and on top of that I've not been well. Instead of revelling in the promise of being able to do absolutely nothing with no one to witness this perpetual laziness, I find myself itching to do something. The comfort zone doesn't feel so comforting any more. But because I'm afraid, because it's something I'm not used to, because of a lot of reasons, I promise that I'll get it done...tomorrow. It's Sunday, and I still haven't done all the things I told myself I'd do on Monday.

And given that I've been doing this for a very long time, you can imagine the things that I've avoided doing by taking this approach to life. And unfortunately, many of the things that I want to do require daily effort in order to have any effect. I have come to realise that telling yourself that you're going to do something is a surefire way not to get it done.

So I need to stop promising myself that I'll do it tomorrow. I need to stop saying it full stop until I've broken out of the habit and when I say tomorrow, I can trust myself to mean tomorrow.

So I'm going to set myself a challenge. They say it takes around thirty days to make or break a habit, so for the next 30 days, I'm going to wake up every morning and write somewhere, anywhere What I'm Going To Do Today and just do that. I have never been a solid to-do list girl but I have had a week here and there where I've managed keep one going, and those have been some super satisfying week productivity-wise. 

Tomorrow can wait because I have wasted enough Todays thinking about a day that I'm not even guaranteed. It's time to get things done. Not tomorrow. Today.