My Home Improvement Method for Overcoming Procrastination

September 8th, 2006

For some reason, when the previous owner of our house upgraded all the windows from aluminum to dual-pane vinyl, she neglected to replace two windows. As luck would have it, they happen to be the two most visible windows to visitors. Also for an unknown reason, she had one of these windows sealed shut, tight enough that three different handymen couldn't get it open.

After living with this for a year (poor Kathy was sweltering in her office) we decided to replace the windows. Given that the 30-year old front door had its own issues - with a non-functional deadbolt we couldn't replace and a one-inch bottom gap that invited in the wildlife - we decided to replace that, too.

So, toward that end, I have had people at the house yesterday and today working on the project. The funny thing is, whenever I have people working on the house, it makes me restless to take care of thing. I draw up a massive to do list and start tackling everything I've been procrastinating about. What is that? Does it make me nervous to have people working hard while I'm "just" sitting and writing? I dunno!

I can't complain, though, because at least I cruise through the things that need to get done. This time I carefully vacuumed out the insides of my old computer (I have special vacuum cleaner attachments for that) and made sure all the connections were secure. I removed the hard drive and hooked it up to the new computer so that I could do a low-level data wipe on it, for security reasons. Then I put it back in the old computer, did some maintenance on the case, found all the old spare parts, and it was ready to sell.

I also set up an external backup drive that's been waiting in its box, as well as an external dual-layer DVD writer that I needed.

When that was all done, I still had time to kill, so I...assembled a file cabinet for the kitchen! (Doesn't everyone have a file cabinet in their kitchen? No?) Luckily, shortly after finishing that the guys wrapped up the job, because I was getting tired.

Maybe this is a new strategy. Next time I get backlogged on the unglamorous To Dos, I'll call a handyman and have him patch some drywall or install something. Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

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