A New Habit

No, not nuns habits, forming a better way of living your life, like exercising every day, or shaking the procrastination demon.

They-I don't remember who they are exactly-say that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Changing the way you do something, or doing something new, so that it becomes a natural part of your routine.

I am trying to break my procrastination tendencies. Sending the storage payment before the last minute, leaving for work early enough so that when I get behind 30-mile-an-hour-granny it doesn't make me 5 minutes late. Which seems to be the norm for me. That 5 minutes.

Nope, don't tell me to set my clock ahead 5 minutes, I'll know and subtract that 5 minutes off the time shown-I've tried that. I really have to force myself to plan to be ready 5 minutes earlier. I have a bad habit of waiting till the last minute to make my lunch, or fix my to-go coffee, or find my shoes. Little things that create that 5 minute gap.

One of my problems is that I don't wear a watch(it gets in the way at work), and I'm not real swift at keeping an eye on the clock. Even when I'm working. I'll be doing something and look up and see that an hour has vanished, or I'm past sign out time.

Hmm...see what all I just wrote? This isn't "just" about procrastination, it's about awareness of time, too. Making this more complex. Would that be one habit or two? lol

Take last Wednesday for example. My Wednesday morning client is the only one I have that is a stickler about my being there on time. I did leave for work on time to drive the 20 minutes to arrive at 9am. Till I got up to the county truck that was working on road patching, so I slowed down for him. Thankfully! A couple hundred yards past him, while I was speeding back up, there were 3 deer. One crossing the road and 2 well off to my right side yet. I began to brake, watching the 2 off to the side. They weren't the problem, the one that was on the other side came back across and "bumped" my right front fender. She wasn't hurt, barely missed a step, didn't even leave a hair on my fender. I had to stop for a couple minutes and regain my composure. Poof-5 minutes late. I did call ahead to let them know I'd be a few minutes late, but that 5 minutes has become the bane of my existence!

I am now working on being on time, watching the clock closer, and not waiting for the last minute to do things like scrape the frost off my windshield-yeah, we had frost this morning.

I just hope that I don't have to start the 21 day countdown over every time I mess up-I'll never reach that new habit nirvana......

I think the procrastination is going to be a little tougher. I've penciled in deadlines for things a couple days ahead of time on my purse planner and the calendar in my room. I do consult these most everyday, so this should help. I carry a notepad around so that I can jot things down, like calling to schedule my TB test-but I haven't managed to get that in my calendar and the few times I've remembered it on my own are times the health dept. is closed. (I just now wrote it down for tomorrow morning)

I may have to add getting myself more organized to the time/procrastination habit situation, which just complicates things that much more. I think I'll just stop before I scare myself....

~Namaste~