The Cat’s Away…Time to Blog

Tick tock. Tick tock. Tick tock. When you’re sitting in front of a blank page with your mind completely void of any idea on where to begin, ever notice how frequently your eyes glance to the lower right-hand corner of your computer? Minutes keep ticking by…31, 32, 33, 34…and the longer the page stays blank, the quicker the numbers change on the clock. At this very moment, my mind is racing with potential ideas and comments and information…flipping through a mental rolodex of possibilities, silently swearing at my boss for going on vacation and dumping his blog week in my lap (Leigh? Are you reading this?), but somehow the perfect beginning remains completely elusive… and so begins the story of my first blog entry for The Bailey Group…

Then it hit me…why not write about the very subject that plagued me from the moment Leigh said, “I’d like you to be a guest blogger next week. Have some fun…” (he really said that…”have some fun.” Clearly this is payback for all of my sunshine-y email reminders to him that it was his turn to blog and then dumping some atrocious topic in his lap). But I digress…back to the perfect blog subject… procrastination. Procrastination is my terminal illness for which there is no cure. I’ve tried planning and plotting, potential rewards for thinking ahead and punishments for falling into my same traps. But, as I get older and bolder (“wiser” smarts of old age, don’t you think?), I’ve found that I’m okay with my procrastination and frankly…it works for me. Google “procrastination” and you’ll get over three million hits for explanations and cures for it and pretty much every other result on the page is guaranteed to contain the word, “overcoming.” Guess what? I’m EMBRACING it. I’ve found that the added pressure of a looming deadline helps me focus and keeps me motivated and frankly, my “procrastination” is actually time spent doing the 87 other things on my to-do list, so it’s not as if I’m not productive. And whatever I’m procrastinating always gets done and it gets done well. So, if you’re like me and the top of your to-do list is due in about a half hour, stop beating yourself up and making excuses; trying to “fix it” or “overcome it.”  At least for today, accept who you are and try giving your “illness” a new name…like, “Alternative Prioritization?” It works for me!

However, if “alternative prioritization” is affecting your leadership and keeping you from getting your job done at a level you aspire to, call The Bailey Group; we’ve got a cure for that. Besides, I’m pretty sure by now “the boss” is back from vacation. I can’t wait until he’s due to blog again…763-545-5997.