One day last week I was perturbed that I had yard work to do. Usually I enjoy being outside in the warm weather, but not that day. I think the reason it bugged me is that I wanted to do some writing on the computer. But a look at the tall grass and weeds around the shoots of the peony bush confirmed I needed to spend time trimming and weeding.
At the moment the tug-of-war between the two activities escalated in my mind, the thought came, Give the trimming and weeding half-an-hour. If you don’t want to do anymore, that’s fine, you can quit. You’ll have been able to make some progress on it, anyway. But give it half-an-hour.
With that thought, along with a prayer for God to work on my attitude, I grabbed the grass shears and set to work. An hour-and-a-half later, I stopped, happy to have a nicer-looking front yard as my reward.
Since then I decided to use this tactic with other tasks which I need to do but don’t want to do. A half-hour is long enough to allow for some progress but not so long that a lot of time is tied up in a project I don’t want to do in the first place. At the end of thirty minutes, I can reevaluate where I stand. I can either continue, or quit and do something else.
©P. Booher
Country Ripples 
I find I’m ok after I start the task. Most of the time I have a waiting list of tasks I don’t want to start. I’m a non-starter??
I used to have a list of tasks that for every one I got done, six more jumped on board! Lately, my dilemma is more like what I described above.
Thanks for reading and commenting!
What a great idea! I’ll adopt this because lately it seems like I have a lot of tasks I don’t want to do.
Thanks. I’m glad to pass it on. It helps me. I don’t stress out or get resentful about things anymore.
A good strategy to jumpstart our endeavors!
Thank you. I’m happy I found something which helps me out (and may help others)!