Making Excuses

I am so good at making excuses.

It is not that I really put off work and anyone who knows me knows I have too much on my plate, fail to delegate, and often take the hard way to get something done. Not always, but too many times.

If you read backwards in my blog, you will find this topic resurfaces. I’d like to tell you I am making progress and maybe I am but I still see the signs of wanting everything perfect and if it is not, getting all bent out of shape.

Blogging is one of those things. I procrastinated starting, I procrastinated once I started because I needed the perfect time, the perfect place, couldn’t find the right pictures, on it goes.

Solved the picture problem after agonizing over whether to buy a camera or not and finally giving in and letting my son, Dan, go to Best Buy to pick one up for me. I told him what I wanted and gave him a range and knew he was techno-savvy and worked well in Best Buy environments so it became his job.

I could even say I delegated.

What a difference the little camera in the pocket made! No, it wasn’t immediately reflected by more blog posts or amazing creative projects but it did make me appreciate the world around me much more. I found myself seeing with different eyes, as I spoke about before and shooting and sharing on my Facebook page

Another goal was to move the office outside so I wouldn’t miss the sunshine. I ran into all kinds of issues there too. I bought a new Wireless N-Router to replace my older wireless router but I left it in the same location as the old one.

I was too afraid

Afraid to take the next step of moving it into the new upper office room with the deck outside. Finally, after my system crashed repeatedly for days, or maybe weeks, I messaged a friend of a friend on FaceBook that runs PC Confusion Solutions and asked if she could come solve that problem.

She happened to be free and came over that afternoon. In less than an hour, she had the router moved, the modem and router set up and my wireless printer that I had working with the old router but was stubbornly refusing to connect for me, all humming along.

What did that do? I could move my office outside on good days and enhanced my desire to be productive. It brightened my attitude and I finalized some other projects. Simple things, I know but it is how I work best.

My goal is to get back on task on so many things I make harder than they are.

I was reading Sue Thompson-Murphy’s post called Creativity 101 and everything she said rang true to me. Sue has been an inspiration many times since I found her on Twitter last fall but I thought I would share this one with you since it fit in with what I was thinking.

I actually had the title of this post saved from a day when I was going to write it but I put it off. Listen to Sue for a minute:

“We have lots of excuses for our lack of creative energy. I make them all the time. Someone once told me that procrastination is a direct result of not having enough information. If you don’t know, you can’t do. Kinda makes sense, eh? So how do we get over the hurdle and get into a creative mindset? Here’s a few things I’m trying…”

and then read the rest of her post.

I don’t promise that I will conquer all my problems

I doubt that I will stop making excuses or suddenly get caught up and amazingly creative in blog posts, new energy, or anything else. I know that is tough for me. But I will keep working on this goal setting, moving forward trend, and really try to stop making excuses.

Are you with me on this? Do you do it too? I’m waiting to hear your solutions. What project are you putting off?