Procrastination

I inherited a veritably awesome ability to procrastinate from my mother. Despite being a very motivated and dedicated person for 80% of the time, something about a task without a deadline renders her completely incapable of activity. I have inherited this trait and can easily spend hours thinking about doing something, worrying that I have not done it, and planning how best to remedy the situation, without actually managing to make any headway into the task at hand, even though it often would take five minutes to complete. I have no idea why I continue to procrastinate about things - I know that getting it over and done with will be a relief and that the thought of doing something is always worse than the reality, but somehow this makes no difference. I am only really motivated at times when I can't possibly complete a task - I will clear out cupboards, fill bags of stuff to take to the charity shop, and then drive around with the bags in my car for months. At this very moment, I posses a passport application form which is complete and just needs sending, but has been in the living room for weeks. At least I am better than my brother who convinces himself that the longer he has put something off the better it needs to be when he finally does it, wrapping himself up in layers of inadequate feelings that render him incapable of any activity. I do wonder whether I somehow find it comforting to know what it is that I need to do, and believe that the devil I know will inevitably be better than the next chore which requires my attention. Maybe I am just lazy and my mind is getting fed up with reminding me of the things I should be doing. Adult life is surprisingly more full of responsibility than I expected, and this is bearing in mind that I really have as few responibilities as it is possible to at the moment. Fortunately I am much better at donig things for other people - the Boy Wonder needed a nwe tyre and it was done in a day, whereas my new tyres had to wait two months. I hope that this will be the case with our children as I dread having to admit that I have failed to complete some important form or made a vital phonecall which will impact on them. Mind you, my Mum never let her powers of super-procrastination affect us, so hopefully that aspect of it is genetic as well.