Wish me luck.

It's evening, at the time most local people are sitting down to dinner, and the work day is just starting for me. I have a to-do list a mile long, and while I am nowhere near in as bad a state as I was on Friday, I still find myself sitting in front of the computer chewing my nails, fretting about the fact that I am having such a hard time actually doing any work.

Our meeting starts in 40 minutes, and I am mostly unprepared. I have a dozen phone calls to make today, but I can't bear the idea of talking to any of those people right now. All I can feel is a desperate desire to curl up on the couch with a book, a glass of milk, and a jar of peanut butter with a spoon.


Motivational writers make it look so easy. They distill things down into a series of steps, that usually looks something like this:

1. Define your vision
2. Write it down
3. Break it down into doable steps
4. Complete the steps one by one and review every day/week/month

Sometimes they add helpful advice, like "do it with a friend," "visualize," "join a club," "report your progress," etc. I don't have the heart for any of that.

It's not that any of the work that needs to be done is actually distasteful--in fact, I will enjoy almost all of it. But when I sit down to do it, I find that everything is easy except the actual work I need most to do: clear my desk, clean out my Downloads folder, see if the newest episode of a favorite TV show is posted yet online, check Facebook, play another game of Spider and see if I can raise my win percentage another point, and so on.

I think I will have to make up my own set of steps. It will have to look a bit different than the list above if I want it to work. So here it is:

1. Get up and change into pyjamas or something similarly comfortable
2. Eat a spoonful of peanut butter
3. Clear off my desk
4. Refill my water glass
5. Open my to-do list and randomly choose something on it
6. Take a deep breath
7. Finish it

Once I get started, it won't be nearly as hard.

Wish me luck.