The One With All the Resolutions

If you were (or still are) obsessed with Friends, you may recognize the title.  It's a great episode which depicts the fragility of our New Year's resolutions.  Here's the one which spoke to me, however:

Setup: Rachel tries to make a resolution which will prove to be very challenging.  Monica reminds her of a previous failed resolution by grabbing her diary and reading:

Dear Diary, I am so excited. My resolution is to write in you every day. I'll see you tomorrow. 

(Fans the pages of Rachel's diary) Nothing!

I can relate. (Note the date of my previous blog entry).  Of course, I have some great reasons for procrastinating.  I have been juggling the school/work balance (side note, 3 nights of class left!!!) and, on a more exciting note, have been navigating the first 15 weeks of my first pregnancy.  Nonetheless, this scene reminds me that I too have failed to follow through on something which has significance for me.  

So why now?  Well, I am staring down the barrel of a three-day lock-down weekend where I do nothing but finish my master's thesis paper and presentation.  And, as I have mentioned, I am a procrastinator.  I have realized however, I tend to procrastinate with reason.  I am putting the paper off tonight so I can freewrite and play word games.  I convince myself this will help open my mind for serious writing tomorrow.  I put off work projects because I feel I work better under a deadline.  And, I put off writing a blog post because I slept most of my first trimester.  Reasons, maybe, but I'm sure this is likely personal justification to help me deal with this flaw on a daily basis.  

Those who don't understand the mind of a procrastinator may believe the things which are put on the back burner are less important.  For me, anyway, this is false.  I love writing and would love to be more up-to-date on my blogs, my baby journal, and other projects.  I love baking and have pinned tons of recipes I want to attempt (by the way, Pinterest is not healthy for procrastinators--more later).  I love reading and have an entire bookshelf full of books I want to read (and that doesn't include the books on my Kindle).  

I hope there are others who understand this disease.  I'd love to hear any remedies or tricks you've found to better manage your energies and focus.  Of course, I suspect most of the people who understand this post will never get around to commenting...