Willpower

Your mind (and imagination) can really be a powerful thing. If I look at a task negatively, then I tend to procrastinate. I tried to trick myself Sunday evening, and surprisingly enough — it worked! I had spent most of this past weekend catching up on laundry and chores that didn’t get done while I was out of town on business and then on vacation the following week. The next-to-last load of laundry had just finished drying and I had a bit of a mess on the kitchen counter. As I was folding the clothes, I hit a brick wall. I just couldn’t do any more work.

John happened to come up and give me a nice big hug (and agreed to clean up the counter), and at that point I told myself that all I had to do was finish folding and then I could go to bed. As long as the clothes are folded, they won’t wrinkle, so I just kept telling myself that I didn’t have to put them away — I just had to fold them. Once the folding was done, I realized that it would only take a minute to put them away, so I did. But I was just too tired to start the next load in the washer. The next thing you know, I found myself in the bedroom filling my now-empty basket with dirty clothes to go into the washer — because it was only going to take another minute.

When I was finally done, I was completely worn out but my laundry was 95% done and the house was nice and neat; which meant that I could rest peacefully and without any guilt. It just took a couple of mind games.

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