Procrastination, time and mindfulness

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." (C. Northcote Parkinson, 1955)

"If you wait until the last minute, it only takes a minute to do." (The Stock-Sanford corollary to Parkinson's law.)

But what if you don't do it, what if you just push it (whatever it is) further on into the future?

Mentally juggling the tasks ahead of me before I go out for the evening, I'm pondering which ones are most important and in what order I should tackle them, and what the consequences of not doing them are. There's a finite time limit: quarter past four in the afternoon, that's when I have to leave to catch the train into town.

It's Saturday morning. The worst that could happen is that I simply end up shifting the tasks on into the future. At least I have no office work requiring my attention before Monday; the weekend is my own. But is it? There's cider-making (clearing the ground under the apple-trees, collecting windfall apples, juicing them and filling a ten-litre demijohn). There's cleaning the house (usually, this can wait). There's blogging (I've not written for a while). And a book I want to read. And my exercises. 

Breakfast over. I take a peek outside – it's raining. And so, I have An Excuse. Not to waste time, I double down on my exercises. Wow! I managed eight pull-ups! (Four sets of pull-ups done. Seven, seven, eight and seven. Twenty nine in total.) Now onto the back extensions... six sets of eight. Done. Now onto the sit-ups... Sixty. Done. Now onto the weights. Four sets of 30. Press-ups, three times twenty, and eight minutes of plank (two times four minutes).

Time should be measured by entropy, not seconds, minutes and years. The process of order turning into chaos. Wasting time means letting chaotic processes unfold.

{{ czas chce nas skrzywdzić }} – 'time wants to harm us'.

I'm not one for being pro-active. Sure, I react, when prodded, I respond. What really drives me, though, is not material. It is mystical; metaphysical. I do believe in an overarching Cosmic Purpose. So much of what happens to us in our lives, the major junctions at which we take this turn or that, are determined by chance. We think we have control over our destinies, and yet looking back we can see how much was preordained. 

However, how much we do, how much we achieve – this is determined by our strength of will. How much we push over into the future, rather than doing today. But then on the other hand, avoiding stress is important to living longer. Don't get worked up over work. If your procrastination leads to levels of stress that you can't cope with, then either learn to let go, or work on reducing the amount of time you waste on the inconsequential. 

As I get older, I see the importance of measuring outcomes. My health and fitness spreadsheet (now in its 11th year) is crucial to this. But while I can demonstrate empirically how I can build up strength of will (and through it, physical strength) from year to year, seemingly in defiance of the ageing process, I cannot will inspiration, creativity, contact with the numinous. And at this moment, I receive an intuition – pray for these things, and they will come. Meditate, mindfully.

This time time two years ago:
Summer as it should be

This time three years ago:
Measuring the unmeasurable

This time five years ago:
Heading Home [my father leaves Warsaw for the last time]

This time seven years ago:
From my father's historic return to Warsaw

This time eight years ago:
Country life in a capital city 

This time ten years ago:
My ogród is my działka

This time 12 years ago:
Mazowieckie province tempts with mini- and micro-breaks

This time 14 years ago:
Pride and anger