Procrastinator or Just Plain Lazy?

It's New Year's Day and time to make those resolutions that no doubt will be forgotten in three or four weeks time.  As I sit down to look ahead to the new year there are many reasons to be much happier at the start of this year than the start of last.  Last New Year's Day I was sitting alone with my cats worrying about whether or not I would be able to stay in my house another year.  I had been unemployed for a year and two months.  I had no job prospects.  I had no leads on a job.  My savings was shot.  My credit card bills kept getting higher and higher as I tried to survive on no steady income.  I had no insurance.  Life was not looking so great on New Year's Eve 2011.  I watched "It's a Wonderful Life" and wondered like George Bailey if I would not be better off, if things would not be better if I had never been born.  I was having trouble holding on to any hope. 

But I survived somehow another 4 months and finally landed a job.  So it is with a much brighter outlook that I start 2012.  I am still working to pay down credit card bills.  I spent New Year's Eve the same way I did last year - alone with my cats.  But I was thinking more about what I might accomplish this year.  I was filled with hope for the future.  This year I can see possibilities.  It's amazing how secure a person can feel when gainfully employed.  It's amazing how much brighter your outlook on life is when you don't have to worry about how you will buy groceries or pay the mortgage each month.  

But as I sat on the couch watching a very orange Dick Clark countdown to the new year, I wondered why it is I don't seem to accomplish as much as I hope to or set out to.  I always have these high hopes or grand plans to tackle things.  I have been wanting to redo my master bathroom for at least 3 years.  I put it on hold when I was unemployed, but I have been working 8 months now and have done nothing towards making over the room.  I have been wanting to paint the guest bedroom for months.  I surely had the time when I was unemployed.  I could have charged a can of paint or two to get it done when I was out of work.  I have been working 8 months now and have my weekends free, yet I still have not tackled that project.  Just this holiday week, I have told myself I should clean out my bedroom closet.  Yet, I sit here watching a Christmas movie I DVR'd and am not motivated to clean out the closet.  Ditto for clearing junk from my garage, cleaning up the bedroom, raking leaves from the front lawn, organizing the kitchen cabinets, going through the kitchen pantry.  The list just keeps on growing.  You can also add to that list my need to exercise more.  

So I sit here today thinking that I should resolve this New Year to be more organized, to keep a cleaner house, to tackle those household projects that keep piling up and like so many other overweight Americans - to get serious about an exercise program.  And as I sit here and ponder how I am going to make myself make that happen, I have to ask myself -- is it that I am a procrastinator or am I simply just lazy?  Procrastination means you are putting something off.  It means you will eventually do it- whatever "it" is.  But I am not so sure I will accomplish all or even any of the things on my list.  Yes, I know a bathroom renovation can wait.  Painting a bedroom can wait.  Cleaning out the garage- as long as I can pull the car into it - can wait.  Organizing my closet or kitchen cabinets or pantry can also wait.  The problem is there is no urgency to these tasks.  

I used to be a television news producer.  My time was divided into 30 or 60 minute programs.  I played beat the clock each day at my job and came home mentally exhausted.  So my excuse then was I was too tired and didn't have the time cause my job was too time consuming.  When I did have enough time off, I used to tackle projects.  I used to be able to plan things and actually get them done in a set time frame.  I was better at delegating my free time.

Don't get me wrong.  I love my new job and the thing I love most is that I have more free time.  I am not on-call.  I do not have my days off revoked by a morning phone call.  I do not have to work overtime because of some national disaster or emergency.  I love that my free time is my own.  But  I have not yet mastered managing all my free time.  I seem to always tell myself - that can wait cause I can do it next weekend or the next 3 day weekend I get since I know I will have holidays off.  And so I keep procrastinating.  But I have to ask myself - is it procrastination or am I just lazy?  Will I eventually tackle these projects?  Or will I never get these things done?  Will I always put it off because there will always be the next weekend?  

I have lived my whole life on a tight time budget and was better about getting things done because I knew if I did not get it done on this day - it could be months before I would have another opportunity to do it.  But now I don't feel that time crunch and it has made me kind of lazy.  I may not get that bathroom remodeled any time soon.  I may not paint that bedroom for another 6 months.  However, if there is one thing I do need to do and stop putting off -- it's to get a handle on some kind of workout routine.  Cause it's one thing to be called lazy, but it's quite another thing to be lazy and fat.