Dorothy, I'm glad these remarks were useful! The author challenges we procrastinators to not put the book down after the first chapter, but to leave it in plain sight, even "keep it in the bathroom and read it when you have time to spare." Now isn't that a euphemism! But I do read in there quite often. ;-D

I've checked in at Mudcat a couple of times today, but I know that once I start writing in the thread, I am totally distracted from what I was doing before. As I start out the program in the book, I figured I'd better keep my visits brief.

I finished two projects today that I've been working on for a week or more. And I saw myself doing it - this is like the fish suddenly able to see the water it swims in. I pulled up two documents this afternoon that I had to merge into one announcement. As I pulled them up I had a mental "ugg!" thought, and found myself doing the old routine of getting up out of my chair (which would NORMALLY lead to heading into the kitchen for something to drink, swinging by the back door and give the dogs a pat, and off to who knows where before getting back to the computer). The thing that comes out early in the first chapter of shortcuts and techniques is what I would simply call "Name it when you see it."

I saw myself turning away from a boring task and gave myself the opportunity to get a drink of water then come back in and sit down and actually do the boring task. And this is the second of these today. So though these are baby steps right now, I do feel good that I finished these two uninteresting but necessary projects.

I also had a personal task to do, I'm still juggling phones for my son. He needs the extra alarms on the newer model of the phone I had here for the house, so I swapped out the account so that phone that is now in the mail (posted at lunchtime) is the one that he will use, and I have an older phone put back into service for the house number. I use it rarely and I don't need those alarms, etc. I made myself do all of that - from contacting the phone company and switching the phones - to the postal end of things - all in one fell swoop.

I'm not reformed yet, but it feels like it was a good day. I have things to do around the house and for myself this evening, so lets see how the "name it when you see it" policy works for chore avoidance.

SRS