procrastination

Ugh. It seems to creep into every area of my life, not least of all photography. I always seem to find myself coming up against a deadline of something like christmas to do one of those things I’d always said I was going to get around to, like making a calendar, or framing some prints as gifts. Then there are the dragging on ones with no particular time frame, like printing on to silk and tagging and sorting the growing number of image files on my hard drive… it goes on. When people have been blogging about goals – yes, it’s that time of year again when we assess what we’ve done and plan what we want to do – I tend to think less of my photography goals, which are like an intangible mist, and more of these annoying little housekeeping/production ‘to-do’s.

I sometimes wonder, if I get the inspiration to do something – like printing onto silk – and don’t have the materials to hand or can’t do it immediately for some other reason, do I promise myself I’ll do it ‘at some point’ out of the notion that it’s actually a good thing to do, or simply because I know I thought it was a good idea on that day? Why is it so difficult, once that indeterminable period of time has passed between thinking of it and having the resources to do it, to pick it back up and finish the job? But then, why is it just as difficult to let go of that nagging little reminder in your head of what a good idea you thought it was in the first place?

Maybe I’m being a true procrastinator by thinking about this instead of getting on with it! Maybe instead of thinking about my plans in terms of completing these things, I should think about them in terms of deciding to do it, or to let go.