Procrastination, or not?

The other day I found myself in a quandary, wondering if I was procrastinating or not. Sounds odd, but that’s exactly what has happened.

I was on my way back from the hardware store carrying a toilet seat and a new showerhead when it suddenly hit me: “am I only doing this because I am fed up with doing research, and wanted to put that research to the side for a while? But let’s step back a couple of weeks…

I had an issue with my bathroom for a couple of months. First of all, that showerhead had been sprinkling water all over the place and taking a shower involved a lot of jostling around to be hit by more than two or three little streams of water at the same time. I had done my best to keep it going, cleaning, descaling and taking care of it, but the rubber jets had all but disintegrated and it was looking decidedly grimy. I knew that there is a time for preserving resources, and there are time when radical steps need to be taken. A new showerhead was on the list of things to get, for sure.

Similar things were happening to the toilet seat. It had come with the rental flat and was clean and all, but over the many years I have lived here, it had degraded a little. The surface had developed scratches from cleaning, and those areas had discoloured in a distressing way: they looked as if something not very nice had gotten stuck in the cracks. Erm. Time for a replacement. My landlady had been very keen on the soft close mechanism of that toilet seat (and I totally agree), so there was not discussion whatsoever that the new one would be similar. I just had to go and get one.

And that is where things got stuck: for months, I had thought of going to the store – which, by the way, is less than 10 minutes on foot away from my home – but it just never happened. Until earlier this week! And we are back to the original story…

Okay: I’m on my way back with the new seat and shower head when my mind got stuck in a loop: “was I doing this to postpone working on a project, or had I been working on projects to put off doing this little chore”? I honestly couldn’t figure out which one it was? Of course, I get tired of the project sometimes and start doing my dishes or watering my plants: that is simply called ‘a break’. I usually go back to work within a couple of minutes and continue for hours.

As for doing DIY: I love that! I actually miss owning a house of my own that needs taking care of all the time. There is nothing more satisfying than fixing things or installing something new – quite apart from having a proper shower or sitting comfortably on the throne (and not wondering what the guests were thinking when they saw they old seat). So really no reason to procrastinate on either front.

I ended up with the realisation that  I probably wasn’t procrastinating at all: I saw both elements as ‘taking care of business’, they simply were interlaced and it felt like doing one thing I love kept me from doing something else I love. Quite the opposite of procrastination, then!

If you have enjoyed reading this, you may find these other articles interesting:

• Choosing the right task
• Are you a procrastinator (video)
• Abstaining for a while