How to build a foundational procrastination practice.

"Fulfillment derives not from lofty achievements, but from ordinary feats. It arrives not once in a lifetime, but every moment of the livelong day.” 

― Karen Maezen Miller

They begin with a practice, most foundational life altering things.

Procrastination is one of them. A ritualized practice of procrastination is one foundation for habit change, brilliant ideas and the surge of energy no cup of coffee can simulate. 

For this practice of procrastination to work you are inserting something productive and stimulating/relaxing into the slot where the thing you need to do goes.

If you have ever wondered how I run my businesses, tend to five kids two puppies one hamster twelve goldfish a hundred plants and one lover while keeping a mostly clean and orderly house (don't look in my van, I don't procrastinate in there) my secret is all here.

Procrastination practice. I'll share with you a few of mine.

1. Play in your closet. Play dress up. Create a costume to become the person who needs to get the task you are procrastinating done. Who is she? What does she want to feel like? This is a tear up your closet kind of dress up play. And then while you are procrastinating further you can make a pile of clothes that don't fit or you know you won't wear to donate or give to a friend.

Here is the magic in this one. As soon as you nail it, you find that feeling and you are embodying it, you will sit down and get the thing done. You'll write the newsletter, you'll pay the bills, you'll send the hard email, you'll write five more pages. Because you have just become the person who can and WILL do that.

2. Walking with ferns. From Zach Bush, "Breathe as many environments as you can. Turns out we can repopulate our microbiome not just by eating, through fermented foods which I love, but by breathing it through the bacteria and fungi in our environment.

How do you do that? You simply get out of your house get out on a hike get near a waterfall get to a swamp get into the mountains get into as many macro ecosystems as you can. And breathe there for a few hours.

Ferns are a really good sign. If you are out in the woods and you see ferns growing, their nutrient base is the oldest eco system on the planet.

A fern is not going to grow unless it has access to the oldest ecosystem on the planet.

So go sit next to a fern and read a book for half an hour. In the sunshine or the dappled shade where the ferns are growing. Sit and read and breathe for a bit.

You are going to repopulate your microbiome and you are going to have a spiritual experience of being under a tree." 

I will add that along with the spiritual experience you will start to become unstuck around the thing you are procrastinating. Trees and ferns just do this for us.

3. Send blessings. Through text, through social media, through the mail or a voice recording. Bless a few people. Five typically works for me. This procrastination is most helpful when you aren't doing your thing because you are lost in comparison or feeling less than. Bless. You will be different. Then go get your shit done.

4. Add plants and goldfish to your home. Plants will change the air quality and goldfish will relax you. Most people kill their plants and goldfish, but if you are adding them as a procrastination practice, they will thrive. I am a bit obsessed with both but I believe what they give me back is a foundational change. They remind me I can show up, I can be consistent, even when I'm procrastinating. 

The idea is for them to distract you from the thing you don't want to do. So you'll spend lots of time watering, talking to them, feeding them. If you ignore either for too long they die. After you've spent half an hour with your houseplants you will be so relaxed, that next task will flow right through you.

5. Do the dishes by hand. Skip the dishwasher and go through the meditative motions of washing dishes in soapy warm water. Your mind will clear. Ideas will flow. Your heart rate will relax. 

There is an affirmation in completion when you wash the dishes by hand and give yourself an empty, clean sink. You'll crave more of it. You will keep going because it feels good.

Create practices that fill in the gaps when you can't do something rather than laying around feeling guilty for what you aren't doing.

You will never regret having a clean sink when you go to make dinner or feel guilty about taking a walk to energize your body when its exhausted from the thing you aren't doing but spending way too much thinking about not doing.

Add to the beauty, use procrastination practices to help you get to thing you are avoiding. Those little moments fill you with kindness and space.

Go make a pot of beans or meditate or sing in the kitchen or make cookies from scratch or go play in your closets.

I adore you.