This pay month (I get paid on the 21st) has already turned into the month of being mega-broke, due to an unfortunate coincidence of necessary expenses. None of which are shoes. I’m taking a few big hits, some expected (car tax, cat flap being fitted, wine delivery), some not (oil delivery) and then I decided that since I was going to be skint anyway, why not deal with all the annoying outstanding chores and their associated expenses too?
So that’s what I’m doing, and it feels pretty positive. I’ve had items on my personal ‘to do’ list for days, weeks and months. After a while, I tend to stop noticing them or their effect in any specific way, but gradually they cluster together and start mobbing me. So I’m suddenly aware that a bunch of stuff needs dropping off at and collecting from the dry-cleaners, because my wardrobe has reached a near-critical status; my iPhone has gone past the point where the smashed screen is usable; I ran out of firewood immediately before the last cold spell but just didn’t get around to ordering a load. The cats need worming, I’ve got two bookclub books to obtain, my fridge is empty (and needs cleaning) and let’s not even talk about the bodywork required on the car because I scraped it along a wall getting into my new parking space near the office. Oh yeah, and my lingerie drawer is a tragedy of tired lace.
Ok, so I’ll probably hold off on those last two items, but the rest? Done, in progress or in plan for the weekend, and as usual with the tasks that I put off dealing with, none of them were remotely time consuming to tackle. I even moved the firewood that was delivered yesterday and stacked it in the woodshed before it had chance to become another undone task on the list (not to mention soaked through in the rain).
Why does procrastination make small chores assume giant proportions? Even while I know something will only take 10 minutes, I still let my mind tell me otherwise. Then the time I spend in the loop of ’I ought to have done that’ is way more than if I’d just gotten on with it in the first place. I’ll definitely be broke, but given my ability to let money drip through my fingers without knowing where it’s gone, that’s more usual than not. At least this month I’ll have nothing on my to do list to show for it!
