Five minutes is all it took to prevent the unnecessary stress!
When the executive assistant of my former editor was fired from her job, there was no one to coordinate the payments of my ex-boss’s monthly billing statements. And so she (my ex-boss) let the bills accumulate, stuffing notices in her bag until the 11th hour, when bill collectors came knocking at the door, or threats of service disconnection had been warranted. Many of us have this habit of procrastinating, and it’s not even because the things in question are so difficult to do. On the contrary, the simpler they are, the more we delay them!
About three weeks ago, I slipped my hand into my coat pocket and noticed a little tear in one corner. I made a mental note to sew it up as soon as I had time. Naturally when I got home, I forgot about it. Until the next time I wore said coat and slipped my keys into the pocket. I noticed the hole had gotten a bit bigger. “Hmm, better make sure not to keep my keys there, or it’ll make the tear even bigger,” I told myself. So I transferred the keys, and naturally forgot about the hole. Until the next time I dropped my keys in the same pocket. “Sew it up, sew it up, sew it up,” I told myself. When I got home I remembered to do it, but somehow found something more important to do.
Then this morning as I came home from an errand and was about to lock my bike, I motioned to pull out my keys from my pocket. But I couldn’t find them there. So I grabbed the “good” pocket, but the keys weren’t there either. Back to the “bad” pocket then: nothing but the satin fabric of the inner flap, and a gaping hole. A hole big enough for a five keys that unlock my main house door, bike, yoga studios, gate, apartment. I heaved a huge sigh of frustration, knowing I would have to backtrack and search the road for my fallen keys. But when I took a step, I heard the familiar clanging of the keys in my coat. They slipped through the hole yes, but thankfully fell into the coat lining.
Can you guess what I did as soon as I got into my apartment? If this isn’t life teaching me to stop procrastinating, I don’t know what is.