Procrastinate ALL the TIME!!

A blog by a well known writer, Devon Monk, recently spoke about the writer's best friend and worst enemy - procrastination.

Now, I've been writing and working with writers for many years, and I can tell you this is pretty universal. All writers procrastinate to varying degrees. I'm quite guilty of this myself, unfortunately - in fact, I'm procrastinating right now, blogging instead of working on putting together my marketing letters for the week. :P

The things we tell ourselves when we procrastinate seem fairly universal, though. "Oh, I'm just not in the mood to write/work/whatever right now. I'll come back to it later when I feel more focused." The only issue is that, honestly...there's never a later. Or at least, there's never that "perfect 'later'" that we're all looking for.

"Oh, I'll rewrite that chapter later, when I have more time." But life doesn't get put on hold for work - and work shouldn't get put on hold for life. Honestly, they're part of the same thing. And if we're constantly waiting for later, we become trapped in the procrastination loop that ends with our never accomplishing anything because we're always waiting for that perfect "later."

So if I feel like this, why am I writing a blog about procrastination - which I have just admitted to being a way OF procrastinating? Well...Because I was supposed to blog today, and this is as good of a topic as any. While I'm putting off my targeted marketing letters, I'm NOT putting off everything. While I'm writing this blog I have several things running on my computer, I'm drinking coffee (more essential to my every day life than you'd think), and I keep absently straightening my desk. I'm also on call to answer the phone, and waiting for the review board to come together to continue working on the final copy review of my boss's book, Buh Bye, MS.

So while I'm procrastinating from one thing (and something I don't really enjoy doing anyway), I'm working on other things. Notice something though - all of these things, with the exception of the blog, are work related! Yes, I am still working! I am still accomplishing things, even as I allow myself a little distraction.

The real problem lies, in all honesty, when it comes down to personal stuff. I have trouble finding time to do little things like straighten my desk. Or reshelve my books...I've been telling myself for months that I need to go through my bookshelf and decide what I'm getting rid of so I'll have more room. I need to reorganize all the drawers at my home desk. It took gaining a new possession and not having anywhere to put it that pushed me over the edge of cleaning a certain part of my area...and it took less than 15 minutes once I got started. Fifteen minutes! And I'd put it off for MONTHS.

Procrastination is bad. It really is.But the lure of it is so seductive that people can't help but do it. And it's even more seductive for people who work from home. Because then you don't have the separation of your work and home environments to encourage you to work past your procrastination and actually get things done. In my free time, I fancy myself a writer. I can't remember the last time I wrote something that wasn't fanfiction of some sort...Well, no, I'm lying. I wrote and completed an original novel for NaNoWriMo 2009, but I think that was the last time I worked on something not based on someone else's work.

I also enjoy making art - both digital and traditional. But like pretty much everything else personal I try to work on, I either put it off waiting for "the muse" to strike...or I get so wrapped up and involved in it that everything ELSE falls by the wayside. Which is not good when one is trying to earn a living. Not to mention that it can lead to me going several days barely eating and then wondering why I'm so tired all the time.

I guess the point I'm trying to get to is that I need to learn how to balance things without procrastinating. And yes, I've tried schedules and time periods set aside for specific things. I have a bad habit of sticking to the schedule for a week (two, three at most), and then losing EVERYTHING in a couple of do-nothing days of non-productivity. At which point I start to feel overwhelmed when I finally "come back" to myself from wherever I went (usually into a game, or a movie...or perhaps a sickness like a cold), and see all the things I DIDN'T get done when I was supposed to get them done - all of which still need to be done NOW. And it's like something in me snaps, and I just...I can't. And I'll find every excuse in the world to put these things off.

I should take out the trash - oh, wait, I'm going to eat dinner in a few hours. I should wait and see if anything gets thrown away from that so I can take it all out at once. After dinner, though, now it's too dark to take the trash out. I'll wait until tomorrow morning. The next morning it's too early, what if my taking the trash out upsets the neighbors? I should wait until afternoon- and so the cycle goes, day in and day out. Until I've procrastinated to the point that what should've been a simple, 5 minute chore, is now a half hour ordeal as I pick up all the things that fall OUT of the very full trash can while I try to empty it, and end up crawling around on the floor to get the last of it. Now I've hurt my knees and my back and man, see, this is why I don't take the trash out regularly anyway....Yeah. It's a seriously vicious cycle, and the trash is only one of the things in my life that I have a bad habit of doing that with.

I'm always finding "reasons" to put things off until later. And then later there's always a reason to put it off even later...And so on and so on. So I figure it's time to take a new approach. From now on, the only thing I am going to procrastinate about is procrastination itself!

At least until I can think of some other reason to put something off.

Yeah. Bad habits die hard.

Goodness At The Core

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime. Yet for every criminal, there are ten thousand honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. 
-Robert A. Heinlein


Humanity as a whole is inherently good. At least in intent, if not always in practice. If we weren't, then the numerous things that have been done solely through donations would never have been done. The countless volunteers that make their presence known at every event around the globe wouldn't bother to come. The old woman who's grocery bag broke as she stepped out of the supermarket would be stuck picking up her own groceries instead of being helped by a younger, stronger person who saw it happen.

We don't do these things for recompense, we do these things because we want to help. At the core of our beings, we want to be "good." Anthropologically speaking, this has been a part of our genetic make-up since long before our brains reached the size and complexity they possess today. It occurs to a point in all other high-thinking creatures on the planet as well, be they mammal or bird, human or non-human. We as a planet do try to help when we see it's needed.

The truth is that the people who are "bad" are the true minority. Unfortunately they are also the major news makers. As Heinlein stated in the above quote, "Decency is not news." So what we tend to hear about is the bad. The people who hurt and don't help. The people who are hurt and have no way to recover. The sadness, and the pains of the world.

And that is why it's more important than ever to promote the success stories.

My boss beat Multiple Sclerosis. It was an incredibly long, drawn out, painful battle. A battle that, several times, she almost lost. But in the end, she won. She hasn't had an attack of any kind in almost two years - the monster is defeated.

She wrote a book about how she did it, hoping that the story of her journey and struggle could inspire others fighting the same monster, or even give hope to those facing other seeming insurmountable odds. Her daughter has started a Kickstarter campaign to get this book to print. If you can, please share the link and maybe donate a bit. Every little bit helps, and this is one story I can't wait to see out there.

The Hydra Beneath The Shell

It seems like the less work I have left on my desk when I leave work on Friday, the more work shows up over the weekend, so that on Monday my desk is a pile of things and I barely know where to start.

No, this isn't a bad thing - in fact, I love having this much stuff to do regularly (even as I blog on my lunch break). But it does occasionally lend itself to that thought of "Wait, what? Wasn't I done?" Usually I can shake that off, but I live with a little monkey on my back called bipolar disorder, and every now and then all the positive thinking in the world can't stop my mind from spiraling down into a depressive phase. Now that I think of it, its' more like a 2-headed hydra than a monkey. And it isn't on my back - I do my best to keep it hidden under a shell.

I can always tell when my mood shifts. The first time I notice myself wanting to curse at the cat rather than pet him when he rubs up against me is a good indicator. Also feeling overwhelmed by mundane, every-day things like cleaning my desk or doing dishes is a good signal that my mind has flip-flopped into it's negative counterpart. I have to guard against this! If I allow my negativity to overwhelm me in my day to day life, it will be even longer before I get that wonderful flip back to the positive side of my personality.

I'm lucky in that I sit on the positive side of my disorder for long periods - or I teeter on the edge between my negative and positive sides, and a tiny shove in either direction can send me into a depression spiral or a manic spike.

I've always been good at projecting an outer appearance of calm. To the point that when either of my disorder's ugly heads rear past that projected appearance, people around me are thrown off and shocked. See, my depressive side has a nasty temper. I've shouted things I didn't mean, attacked people who were only trying to help me, figuratively hit below the belt with things they've told me in confidence that I'm now throwing out into a public conversation specifically to hurt them. I become, to put it mildly, a serious bitch.

The other side of the coin can be just as bad, but in a different way. At the height of my manic phases, I find myself singing aloud while sitting at my desk at work, bouncing in my chair like a hyperactive five-year-old, greeting everyone who happens to so much as walk past me with an excited, "HI!", and perhaps the worst - being 100% completely blind to the emotional states of those around me. I'm so happy and up that how could they NOT be?! This has caused several arguments with coworkers - and I'll tell you, nothing will make my hydra's heads flip flop faster than an argument or a reprimand.

It may not be a physically manifesting disease, but bipolar is very real and just as much of a struggle as other illnesses. My aunt killed herself at the age of sixty-one. She was bipolar. The note she left indicated she believed herself not to be worth anything. At my worst, I've felt the stirrings of those kinds of feelings, and it frightened me. Bipolar can be a killer. Everyone with it must be vigilant at all times for what head is raised, and do their best to keep the monster beneath a shell of outward appearance when in work situations.

I use Rescue Remedy to calm myself when my depression spirals into anger or panic, and meditation to bring myself down from the high of a manic phase. Every day I walk the line, trying not to bounce too high or fall too low. But the reality is that no one can completely control their minds...and I do fail. And all I can do then is say, far too often...

I'm so sorry.

An Introduction To Passion

When you love history, what is it about history that you love? Is it the romantic aspects, the possibilities of personal interaction so long ago lost to the past that captures your imagination and spins stories through your head? Is it the physical aspects, the artifacts found by archaeologists and populating museums throughout the world, things you can see and (if you're lucky) touch?

I got interested in anthropology through a combination of all of these and more. When I was growing up, we spent a lot of time in museums because I was homeschooled and my mom believed strongly in experiencing that which you were learning about. I remember being drawn in and fascinated by anything older than a few hundred years. The sense of human history that hangs about a museum has always been palpable to me, and it was a siren's song. While other kids were checking out the dinosaurs, I would hunt for the mesoamerican or paleolithic exibits and spend hours reading the descriptions and imagining what life must have been like in those times.

For a long time, I thought that I would be an Egyptologist, as that time period sucked me in like no other. But as my schooling went on, and I eventually got my GED and moved on to community college, I found that a broader scope was so much more fascinating. When asked to declare a major, the choice seemed obvious. I chose Anthropology, and I've never looked back.

My love affair with anthropology has only deepened through the years of college study. Passion has guided me through difficult (grueling in some cases) courses in other subjects, because they were required for my major. I've learned that I will do whatever it takes to gain the knowledge I need to see more and feel more of the human history that steeps this world. Physical anthropology - the little biological details that separate the human animal from the non-human animals and other primates. Cultural anthropology - the nuances and social norms that define our incredibly complex social interactions world wide. Archaeology - the search for physical evidence of our human past, artifacts and the like (no, this is NOT Indiana Jones - he's a very poor archaeologist, though not a bad professor!) for display in museums and study by other anthropologists and scientists. Finally, Linguistics is also a branch of anthropology! The study and comparison of human language shows how our intelligence has evolved and branched out over the thousands of years we have dominated the planet.

It's all of these things and more that drew me and continue to draw me into anthropology. We as a species are the most complex and wide-ranging creatures we know of, and yet there are species that we know more about than we do about our own history! These are the gaps that anthropologists seek to fill in, and what I spend my life studying.

"But Lynne," I can hear you asking. "You work in the marketing department of a publishing and ghostwriting company. What does that have to do with anthropology?" And you know, a few years ago, I'd wonder the same thing - but something I've learned thanks to my association with my now partner and wife, Kaitlyn, is that the stories that people hold in their heads, be they fiction or non-fiction, have just as much to do with human history as the artifacts I was fascinated by in museums all those years ago. Anthropology is a very wide scope! It takes us from the worldwide, to the personal. From the ancient to the modern. If it's human in origin, then it has to do with anthropology - the study of human beings!

Writing is about anthropology on a personal level. A person's history is a memoir, a company's business politics is a wonderful example of cultural and social anthropology. So many people have books in them, whether they realize it or not - interacting with these people through my post as a marketing intern is just another way for me to take my anthropological knowledge out of the classroom and apply it to something real and tangible in my own life!

So the answer to the question is that I work where I do, rather than in a museum or the like, because here and only here can I receive personal, hands-on experience with the human condition. Dealing with clients, speaking to foundations and cultivating interpersonal relationships with all of these wonderful people has taught me as much if not more about anthropology than I had already learned through the classroom. Every day I learn more, sometimes from sources that you would never expect!

Anthropology is about humanity. Humanity is about learning experiences. I am proud to call myself a human being, and an Anthropologist.

A First Post!

Hello world!

I'm so excited to have a chance to share my passions and life via technology. I don't quite know what I'm going to be blogging about. Um...let's start by talking about me!

I'm an anthropologist, though I'm not employed as such at the moment, and I'm in school working toward my BA in anthro as well. I could go on forever about random things IN my life, but this blog is supposed to be about me!

Um....drat. I can't think of anything else to say. Ok, here's what I'm going to do! I'm going to find something interesting to discuss, and then I'll blog about that! Ooh, maybe we can have some sort of discussion. That would make me so happy. I love a good debate.

So, um...Ok! There are some of my favorite blogs over there on the side (I like a wide variety of stuff), and you should definitely check those out. And I have a twitter, and a facebook...Oh. I don't think I linked the facebook...Can you link a facebook to a blog? There has to be SOME way...

Well, I'm babbling. But I warned people of that in the sign at the top, so if you're still reading, it means you like me babbling. Still, I hope my next post will have a bit more direction to it.

See you all then!