“Just Do It” has been the slogan of Nike Inc. for several decades now. Just today, I decided to make it the slogan of my life.
I am the queen of putting things off for more reasons than I could ever explain here. My OCD, depression, pain and anxiety certainly play major roles but are only a drop in the bucket. I can rationalize almost anything.
Let’s take email for instance. I will look through the titles of all the emails that have just come in and I will look at some, delete others and leave the rest for “later”. Today, I was thinking about why I leave hundreds of emails unread sitting in my many inboxes carefully sorting them out into the varied sources of the email. I will pass by one thinking I will read it later and leave it to sit there until the next time I decide to clean up the folders.
So, I made myself go through each of the emails that had just arrived in one folder and dealt with them by either reading or deleting them. And once I had at least partially read one I either saved or deleted it. If I can keep this up, then my mail folders will not be flooded with old unread posts.
Now my desk. The OCD in me wants a clean place to work in. But the pack-rat in me has to save every little thing “just in case”. I am putting everything into only 3 piles – keep, recycle and shred. The keepers will all go into one basket regardless of what it is and why I am keeping it. Once I see the surface of my desk again, I can then sort through the basket. After that, when something comes in the mail, off the printer or from wherever, it will go to its own home immediately. This way, nothing gets lost either.
The “Just Do It” formula has been working quite well in my kitchen and living room. There are a few out of place things but they get taken care of and it looks nice with little effort now. I am trying to do things as I see them or, if I just can’t for some reason, make a list of priorities.
Now that I am finally feeling better from 10 days of the flu, I need to start exercising again for my pain and depression. I once again have a stationary bike so I am doing a minute on it a couple of times a day so that I don’t mess my knee up anymore. I also am hoping the rain will let up soon so I can go for some walks. They will be short and slow at first, but at least, I will be doing something. I want to get back to the stretches that are so important to my physical and mental well-being too.
Finally, I want to experiment with my cake stuff again. I have a wedding cake to do in a month so I want to practice a few techniques beforehand. The only thing here is not bingeing on the products – cake, frosting, ganache, fondant, etc. I don’t even like sugar anymore; however it is an addiction. I did pretty well the last time, just sampling to make sure it tasted all right so I will do my best.
There is one more area where I need to apply the “Just Do It” motto. I need to be more pro-active in my faith. I read devotionals and pray every day. I read inspirational blogs as they come in my feed, and I listen to Christian music most of the time. However, I need to have fellowship with my church family in some form or other. I have a hard time getting to church on Sundays. Most of the Home Groups are at night on weekdays and I can not drive any distance at night. But with God, there is always a way.
Well, my loveable mutt, Violet, is asking me to feed her so I had better just go and do it! 😉
Lydia!
Being Lydia! 
One way in which I struggled with just doing it is laundry. I would diligently sort and wash and dry the laundry each week, but I’d come back from the basement with a basket full of folded laundry (and a pile of undergarments that weren’t even remotely folded) and proceed to pick through that to find things to wear for at least half the week before finally putting it away. It wasn’t until I started a fairly motivating antidepressant that I could manage to put the laundry away on laundry day.
Of course, I still procrastinate on lots of other things, but it’s getting easier to pick a task and follow through instead of looking around helplessly at all the things I could be doing and choosing to avoid them all.
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You have one up on me. I often get the laundry washed and dried, but if I am not doing another load may forget it in the dryer. Or, I will put it into the basket in a big pile. I am trying to just do one load a day and make sure I do it from start to finish.
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I love this Lydia! Because that’s my slogan/motto too! It has been for years! Just Do It. I can’t say I always live by it, but I try to. Sounds like you’ve got a good handle on it 🙂 Take care, Jenny
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love the post….I use that phrase all the time…except mine says if it needs to be done just do it…..gets me through a lot of house work and crap I really don’t want to do….but man do I feel better after….XXkat
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Thanks, Kat. Yes, it is so much easier just to do it and then it is out of the way!
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exactly….I make cleaning, unloading the dishwasher, vacuuming, any of that a competition for myself….how fast can I get the dishes done start to finish…LOL same with vacuuming…its amazing how much work you can get done in ten minutes…LOL
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Unfortunately with my pain issues and fatigue, I can’t race around like that. However, if I put things away right at that moment, I don’t have a pile of things to do later! 🙂
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yes we can only do what we can…but if we do it in the moment then they don’t start building up and the get to much….have a great evening..kat
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Sounds like me and my desk. I must add though that I am a hoarder and OCD doesn’t help that either.
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Tessa, I know what you mean – add chronic pain in there which limits your abilities and you have a great triple threat!
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Yeah, such a pain literally LOL!
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Oh boy, Lydia… Your inbox issues sound almost as bad as mine… almost! 😉 I like to keep all sorts of stuff too… ’cause really, you just never know… right?!? 😉 Hope you’re feeling tidy and well, today! Thanks for all the smiles 🙂 ♥ ❤
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Yes, thanks, I have done my best to keep up with things in the inbox department! 🙂
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It’s a battle! I’m coming up on a full year since my iMac died and left email in the hands of webmail apps… I’ve been musing about an “inbox-icating” blog post and will need to incorporate a dash of humour from your post in that! 🙂 ♥ ❤
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I look forward to it!
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