Daily Prompt: Procrastination

Posted in Challenges by angloswiss

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

Photographers, artists, poets: show us TIME.

Platform 1 Solothurn station

Can you see it, the Swiss Railway clock at my local station of Solothurn. This is not just a clock, but THE clock adopted by Apple iPad/iPhones. So you see Switzerland is not just the country of numbered bank accounts, gold bars, gnomes, cows and mountains. We have a clock, the clock. And now down to business.

It is a funny thing with that word “procrastination”. I first saw it on web sites used by some colleagues over the pond in the States. Apart from having issues (problems) and going to the movies (cinema) they did some procrastinating in between. I never really bothered about the word and thought it was some sort of complaining. We all complain otherwise we would not be human. Now I discover – thankyou WordPress – that this is the way to do a job you do not want to. Just procrastinate it, push it on one side, forget it and with luck no-one will notice.

I found procrastination was the ideal solution when the boss at work asked if you had dealt with a particular job that you actually did not want to do, had not yet found the solution on how to do it, or it just plain “sucked” – one of my WordPress colleagues from over the pond came up with this word in a blog, most useful. I almost forgot it, from my Beavis and Butthead fan club days. So yes, I procrastinated with the work: said to boss “I will have a look”. Being a boss with other things on his mind, this answer seemed to suffice and he we usually forgot the whole thing. Should he remember, it was so long afterwards that the solution had found itself.

Since becoming a golden oldie I am not supposed to procrastinate any more. I have nothing to do all day; I have no work, just sit at home and write blogs, read a book, read magazines, knit. I had to strike that one, my knitting days are gone, due to a few aches and golden oldie pains and still waiting for the first grandchildren. Although they will probably want the modern onesie dress with the studs, all made in stretch modern material. So there I am sitting around wondering what to do with my luxury life.

At the beginning of my retired days I did not procrastinate so much. I had a newly found freedom and caught up on all the chores that I had procrastinated throughoutl my working life and that was 35 years in Switzerland. You do not just clean windows now, but the frames are cleaned at the same time. There are kitchen cupboards to be scrubbed. What about the tiles in the bathroom, let them shine again. Curtains to be washed (here I am lucky, I do not believe in curtains, more trouble than they are worth) I have blinds. Oh, yes the blinds must be cleaned – a wash down with the hose outside (live on the ground floor). So after a month or so all these procrastinated things were no longer being procrastinated, they had been completed.

Did boredom set in? No, you cannot just do these forgotten chores once after retirement. I still have a few years left (I hope), so these procrastinations must be upheld, dealt with regularly, otherwise we return to the working days when everything was either not dealt with or fitted in once a year some time.

At the moment it is summer and living mainly outside, the apartment stays more or less ok, although just a minute. The hedge surrounding the garden grows. Mr. Swiss cut it the last time, but since has had an attack of the dreaded back problems – we all get them in age, but they can lead to immobility. A new plan had to be found. It was discovered, procrastination abolished. I found I was shopping on my own, back in the planning and logistic department on a home basis: compiling shopping lists and having conversations with the butcher and other sales personnel in the supermarket. I even began to drive the car on a regular basis instead of only a once a week trip to my Tai Chi training sessions. At emergency times like this I am grateful for an automatic gear change – just have to sort your feet out.

Needless to say the procrastinated garden hedge is still growing, but next week I have decided to attack it with the electric saw – no problem. It is all a matter or organisation, in between shopping, cooking and eating and my golden oldie sleeping session daily. If I abolished the sleep recovery therapy I would have two hours more to deal with the stuff I procrastinate about, but I decided when the retirement happy hunting grounds arrived, that life would now be what I want to do and not what I have to do.

Today is Sunday, not that it has to be a procrastinating free day for some reason, but all the shops in Switzerland are closed, you are not allowed to mow the lawn, or any other noise making work outside, so today I cannot even do things that I should do, through procrastination.

Tomorrow is Monday and the procrastinating week begins and tomorrow afternoon I will cut the hedge. There is one small problem, our super-efficient weather forecast has predicted rain. As rain has been scarce for the past week, we expect something deluge similar. As Mrs. Angloswiss does not want to develop webbed feet or an attack of a common cold, I think I will have to postpone the work until Tuesday afternoon. Oh, I forgot, Tuesday afternoon is reserved for Tai Chi.

Wednesday? I might fit it in some time around five in the afternoon, but it could wait until the end of the week really. Oh this procrastination is such a stress.

Daily Prompt: Procrastination

Let us do some Pingbacking

22 thoughts on “Daily Prompt: Procrastination”

famousfeline

18/08/2013 at 16:18

HAHA. Hedge? What hedge? Oh, that. Also, I totally understand about (not) doing what the boss wants us to do. Or the boyfriend. Sigh.

LikeLike

Reply
- angloswiss
  
  18/08/2013 at 16:33
  
  Just a matter of organisation. We both believe we have a democracy
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
znjavid

18/08/2013 at 16:20

Ok now I have to ask! How do you make that list at the end of other entries?

LikeLike

Reply
- angloswiss
  
  18/08/2013 at 16:26
  
  I go to the Daily Prompt link for the day and do a copy/paste of the links at the bottom and add it to my blog text. It works, although I am still not sure if this is the way to do it but up to now have had success. Do not forget to remove your own link in the list. I usually do an update tomorrow morning to include almost everyone.
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  - znjavid
    
    18/08/2013 at 16:30
    
    Does it help? I mean does it get more people to view your post?
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
angloswiss

18/08/2013 at 16:52

I don’t really know if more people view my post. That is not really why I do it. I think I do it because it is there, so why not. I generally view most posts on the daily prompt daily, time permitting and I always appreciate it when someone views my post knowing that not all have the time to do so.

LikeLike

Reply
- upstairsproductions
  
  18/08/2013 at 21:16
  
  Talk more about funny things we say and do. That was good stuff. I don’t allow myself to say anything sucks, it’s a massive no-no as an adult and we glare at the kids when they say it. Like massive, do you say that?! What do you say when something really (sucks!)?
  
  LikeLike
  
  Reply
  - angloswiss
    
    19/08/2013 at 08:27
    
    Having two languages in my head, I have a double choice of a word, so it varies from my mood and how bad it “sucks”.
    
    LikeLike
    
    Reply
Pingback: What if I wasn’t so lazy? | Okay, what if ?
Pingback: Daily Prompt: Procrastination – It is Earlier When You Think | SERENDIPITY
Pingback: Daily Prompt; Procrastination | terry1954
Pingback: Procrastination: I think… | Life & Times
Pingback: How To Turn A Woman Into She-Hulk | Molly Greye
Pingback: The Squawk of Unopened Books | Expressions
Pingback: Daily Prompt: Procrastination | To Breathe is to Write
Pingback: Daily Prompt: Procrastination | Jake Kuyser
Pingback: Daily Prompt: Procrastination | My Atheist Blog
reinventionofmama

19/08/2013 at 10:22

My favorite line was this: life would now be what I want to do and not what I have to do. Well put! And, something I try to work into my day now. Have a great week!

LikeLike

Reply
fransiweinstein

19/08/2013 at 14:29

Thanks for the shout-out. I feel better knowing I’m not the only one who puts things off.

LikeLike

Reply
Pingback: Procrastination Time Again… | planningforaccidents
Pingback: So depressing | Life is great
Pingback: It's all about the Stuff