My grandmother once gave my father a plate. It was called a round tuit.

I was reminded of it today as I found myself running out of ways to procrastinate.

Using twitter to announce my predicament I quickly received what I needed from @shbib. A link to an article titled “Structured Procrastination” written and published by John Perry in 1995.

Excitedly I clicked on the link and was faced with a several hundred word article. The only thing for it was to go and make a cup of tea.

On my way back in to my home office I noticed several things I’d been meaning to do. Shelves to tidy. Things to move from my desk to a shelf. A pile of papers to straighten. Ways to organise things on shelves.

Eventually, having fired up Sigur Ros on itunes, I did read the article and I can thoroughly recommend everyone adds reading it to their to-do list. To quote:

One needs to be able to recognize and commit oneself to tasks with inflated importance and unreal deadlines, while making oneself feel that they are important and urgent. This is not a problem, because virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills also.

Today was my getting stuff done day. I’ve got a list. Invoices to write, research to plan, people to contact, filing, researching various financial products for the self-employed, reading the next bit of Getting Things Done. I’d set the day aside for these. The reality is most of them probably won’t take very long. But I keep putting them off.

One day I’m sure I’ll get a round tuit too.