Avoidance Mentality

I've noticed that I can be very good at avoiding work I don't want to do. It doesn't matter that what I am avoiding might only take a few minutes and that I've been needlessly delaying for hours, making myself unhappy over something that could be over and done with, but I can still find a way to delay doing the work.

I'm not the only one. My husband is excellent about delaying things he finds embarrassing or uncomfortable. In our old house we had a large desk in our office which we didn't actually use. We mostly stored things in it. I discovered that my husband would stash things he didn't want to deal with under the desk, where he could find them later but wouldn't have to see them until then.

I took to calling avoidance putting things "under the big desk" and I'm afraid that I am pretty good at it.

Right now I have some work to do. It isn't that it is difficult or that unpleasant, but it isn't exciting and I've delayed it just long enough that I now feel guilty about it. That guilt is not something I like to face, so I delay some more. This, inevitably, leads to more guilt and so I'm in a loop of nonwork which is ridiculous when I examine it but, oh so easy to fall into when I don't examine it.

Examination is probably the key here. Silly excuses and petty delays are harder to keep going in the cold objective light of examination. The problem is that those of us who are good at putting things under the big desk, don't generally like to drag things out into the light of day.

It is for that reason that I keep this blog. To force myself to see what I am doing--sabotaging myself and my progress. I could finish my work and enjoy my internet surfing in peace or I can poke at the internet as guilt festers and more work builds up, making me forced to put in a long day of catch up fueled anxiety.

If you are good at avoiding what you know you should be doing, drag the reasons out into the light of day. They seldom hold up when examined. Then, like me, you can simply do the work--and feel better afterwards, wondering why you put it off in the first place.