Procrasti-cleaning or procrasti-gardening
My studio work surface all clean and ready to go
I can’t remember where I first came upon the term ‘procrasti-cleaning,’ but I fell in love with it immediately. It was the perfect description for a behavior that I engage in, and that is doing something productive while procrastinating on getting a task of greater priority accomplished. For example: filing my taxes, writing that paper/report, making that phone call, or revising my resume and starting the job hunt; those are all really challenging things to do, some may be even scary things to do, so in order not to do them, but be productive I can - clean!
Cleaning is productive. When you’re done with the task you feel better. You have evidence of your hard work. Others will notice the fine job, and if you’re lucky, compliment you on it. But it doesn’t get that dreaded job done. That dreaded task looms in the background, and it calls to you. You try to ignore it, but it doesn’t always work.
Me repotting spiderplants
Take today for example, one priority task was to write a blog post. I’ve set a goal of creating a schedule to regularly sit down, produce and post a piece of writing. It was a week ago that I wrote my last post so today would be the day to write the next one. You might be able to see what’s coming - another task I’ve been wanting to do is clean the sunporch. Now, here in New England it has been either raining or hot and humid. When it’s dry I go out and work in the garden because hey it’s summer and this is the time to be out there communing with nature. Today it is dry and not so humid, and I really want to use the sunporch table for mealtimes. Earlier this spring, I used the spot as my potting table and greenhouse for starting seedlings, and have continued to use it for chores like propagating geranium cuttings among other messy jobs. I determined today would be the day! It got done, and I’m feeling really good about that, but there was that voice whispering “what about that post you intended to write?”
Recent garden path project
The answer is… here it is. I realized that writing about my procrasti-cleaning behavior might resonate with a lot of you. Recently on Instagram a plant shop had a chalkboard outside with a cute statement that included the term procrasti-gardening. Love it!! Of course, I engage in that as well. Don’t want to spread mulch? go deadhead the flowers. Don’t want to weed? edge a bed. Too sunny to work in vegetable patch? deal with an over grown pathway.
My clean porch ready to enjoy!
The experts tell us to do the hard thing first. They’re right it would be so much easier to do that, but we don’t always take advice well. However, now that my porch table is nice and clean, I will have a lovely place to sit and work on my next blog post! Let’s hope the next time I have a challenging task facing me, I will resist the urge to clean, or garden, or sit down in the studio to create, or pick up my knitting, or …
