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As the day drags on into the late afternoon and there’s still work to be done, it’s my custom to start making compromises. I propose deals with myself which I inevitably accept. If I get tired of writing company checks, I decide that some of the bills can be paid on the next check run. If necessary, I encourage myself to do an extra check run over the weekend, rather than doing more work in one day than I absolutely have to. That’s especially true if I have a book waiting for me. And that dynamic is intensified if I’m reading in the second half of the book, especially if it’s a mystery or detective story.
The funny thing is that I start out each day with the intention of getting as much done as I possibly can, just so I can avoid the necessity to spend Saturday writing checks or working on spreadsheets. What bills absolutely must be paid today in order not to be late? Those are the ones I pay. Whatever can wait will wait, as the song goes.
There’s a particular problem with this month’s bills, because the end of February comes a couple of days earlier than the end of the month before and the month after it. Somebody decided this would be leap year, cutting me a little slack by giving me an extra day, which I intend to take full advantage of. It’s even a Friday, this extra day. Excellent planning, whoever made that decision!
Here’s the problem, though. Once I start making compromises, I have a hard time knowing when to quit. I could have worked another couple of hours tonight (in the drizzly darkness, with my head hanging low and my shoulders sagging and my eyelids drooping). If I’d done that, I’d have saved myself from working all day Saturday. I should have done that, but once I decided I wasn’t going to do everything I set aside to do today, I pretty much bagged it on everything else as well. Laziness is like a gateway drug to total sloth. |
