Avoidance: Another Sign That You Need Organization

I can always tell when I am in trouble. My email inbox is full. My computer desktop is filled with files. My laundry is stacked up. This will mean that I am also behind on many tasks, not organizing my bills, and avoiding work tasks. I am probably spending too much time reading things on the computer or gone on a fiction reading binge.

I've done it many times before. These are all symptoms of a larger problem--but they also are part of a vicious cycle that makes me feel even worse.

Today I've got to face it. I'm feeling stressed and overwhelmed again.

The worse sign for me is avoidance. I used to do this all the time during my dissertation writing time. I know I have work to do and will even make a to do list, but then sit there doing "one more thing" for the rest of the day. This can go on for days, if I let myself, with each day the guilt piling on even higher, which, of course, makes me want to avoid the task even more.

The most frustrating thing is that sometimes the task I am avoiding ends up only taking 10 minutes. It doesn't have to be a hard task or a long one for it to build up like this. It just has to be something I am dreading--for one reason or another.

Sometimes I dread things because I really don't have a clear sense of the steps to take. Sometimes it is a task I simply do not like to do. Other times it is just something that seems large or difficult or which I worry about failing in some way.

Whatever causes the hesitation, I struggle with getting started and then with following through.

This is exactly the problem I dislike in myself the most and which I set out to find a way to fix (as much as possible) for this self-improvement project.

While I've become better at being self aware and knowing I have a problem, I have not yet truly solved it.

In other words, I've gotten better at reporting the problem exists but not in moving forward and actually doing the things I want without delay. Annoying, but true.