Is there a chance one might not have control of being lazy or being productive?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Senegoid took my answer.

I work really hard at work. I work really hard on exercising and my artwork. But even setting aside five minutes for housework ONCE A WEEK is enough to make me want to scream. To get myself from thinking a chore is too tasking, I have to write it all out to the most minute detail.

I know if I were to tell this to anyone in real life, they would laugh at me and tell me to stop trying to make excuses for myself. But because I know I am a hard worker, I know I’m not a lazy person. I have mild executive dysfunction (recently certified by the medical establishment!) It explains why I’m very disorganized, why I don’t see clutter the way other people do, and why I can’t ever keep a clean house. It also explains why I was really bad in my chemistry classes in college. I have a hard time following directions. I don’t know why I do; I just do.

I push myself harder when I can, but I can also stop beating myself up about it.

22

My personal view is that “lazy” is a word used to denigrate others by people who get off on denigrating others.

23

I’ll tell you the trick. Find something you actually like to do. I too, had the hardest time dragging myself to the gym or exercising. On a whim this summer i joined the Y and started swimming.

Now, while it’s still hard to get up in the morning, I am generally looking forward to my morning swim. I love swimming! And when I plunge in the water for 20 minutes or half an hour all of my worries go away. I’m doing laps, but I feel so relaxed.

Bikeriding is another one I love. You just have to find something you like - providing you are doing it to stay in shape/be healthy. If you have serious goals like losing dozens of pounds or working out until you drop, you will have to force yourself to do the other things. :slight_smile:

24

Yep, I agree with this, I can’t imagine anyone really chooses to be non productive. Something is wrong when you don’t have the will to do normal things.

25

Start slow. You don’t have to make any major changes all at once. If you get to the gym and work out for 20 minutes and don’t feel like doing more, then stop, cool down and go home again. You don’t want to torture yourself, that will make you feel like not going the next time. Just do what you feel you can.

Anaamika and Silver Tyger are onto something here, find what exercise you like to do. Getting out in the sunshine and fresh air is good for you. Go for a walk for 15 minutes, then if you find you like doing that, work up to 30 minutes or as long as you’re enjoying yourself. Are there any nice scenic roads or parks nearby?

I’ve been having the year from hell and started seeing a therapist, she suggested exercise for my depression and it’s helping. I like hiking and I’ve started going more often now.

As for getting things done, one trick I read about that seems to help is to say out loud (even if you’re alone and no one will hear but yourself) what it is you’re going to do. “I’m going to do the dishes”. See if you don’t find yourself doing the dishes…

26

Upon preview, I wrote a long-ass post. It’s just how I’ve figured out how to keep my home together over the years, despite my extreme procrastination issue. I hope it resonates in some way, it took me until I was about 35 to figure this out enough to get it to work for me. (I’m 42 now)

I have an issue with getting started. I have since I was a toddler. I think about what I would like to do/accomplish, and it snowballs into thinking about all the possibilities and outcomes and other things I need to do before or after the thing is done, in order to do it. Then I get overwhelmed and just don’t do it. My mom tells me I’ve been this way for as long as she can remember, and even when I was little she needed to give me one thing to do to get started, then I could do the rest with no prompting. If she didn’t give me that first thing to do I just couldn’t figure out where to start. She couldn’t say “go clean your room” - it had to be, “pick up all your toys, start with putting Dollie in the toy box.” Once I got the first thing started, I could do the rest and more until the whole room was spotless.

For example: Laundry. I really need to break down the bed and wash the comforter and the blanket that goes on top. I also have a load of sheets waiting to be done. I really should pull the cover off the loveseat and wash that, too. Can I get it all into two loads, I wonder? The colors should be compatible if anything bleeds. I bet I could even fit a winter coat that needs washing in with one of those loads. I should go around and grab all the cat bed linens and give those a wash. I’m out of underwear - first thing is a load of whites. I must do those, because - I’m out of undies.

So all the other things get set aside (in my head, because I never actually started) and the load of undies gets done because that’s what’s needed right now. But, I use the building’s laundry room, so I could do 2 or 3 loads at once. So once I finally get started with sorting through stuff to make an undie load, then I’ll do a couple extra loads of the other stuff I’ve been thinking about doing for a month. Or two months.

I use this “getting started” momentum to accomplish other tasks. Like the bathroom, for instance. The sink and tub don’t get funky or mildewed or anything besides some soap scum that needs to be cleaned off once in a while. It’s minor enough for me to look past most of the time. Company comes over, close the curtain and wipe down the sink if needed. The toilet, on the other hand, needs a scrubbing every few weeks. It gets gross if not cleaned. So I use that momentum to clean the whole bathroom. Once I get started on the throne, no reason not to keep going, and a mere 30 minutes later, tops, the bathroom is totally done.

Company coming over will always spur “extra” cleaning, getting the cobwebs out of the corners, wiping the walls around the stove, that sort of thing. My solution to getting these things done more often is to have company over more often.

Dishes used to get out of hand until I pared everything down and then put the entire sets of dishes and flatware up and inconvenient to reach, leaving a set of two of each of everything that stays in the strainer, so I force myself to wash things when I’m done with them, and even if I don’t, there’s not much accumulation before I have to wash stuff or climb to the top of the top cabinet to reach clean stuff - or just wash what I can reach. It’s a little inconvenient when people are over and I do have to dig additional place settings out, but totally worth it for my day-to-day sanity.

What people have mentioned about accountability for exercise works for me around the house. Having people over once a week or every other week really keeps me doing the daily stuff that really needs to be done daily. Those are not many things at all. Aside from personal hygiene, the things I do every day are: feed the cats twice a day, scoop their litter once a day, sweep once a day (which is fun since I bought a wide push-style dust mop), wash whatever pans/dishes I’ve used as I use them, and toss junk mail directly into the trash when it arrives rather than set it down. That’s it. The other stuff like dusting and vacuuming and laundry generally don’t get done until the day before company.

When I had a garden apartment that people could see into - the place was spotless all the time. For me, it really is an accountability issue. I was also a neat-freak when I had a roommate, but that was many years ago and I prefer no roommate, so that may not be a solution depending on how you feel about having a roomie.

Whew. Well, I’ve spent all this time typing this, so I’m hitting Submit.

27

A British man wrote a humorous book called How to be Idle which has some serious observations on this theme.

My cousins gave me the book, with the stipulation that I not read it until I’d finished writing my dissertation. Well, I cheated, and read it anyway. (I did finally finish my dissertation, almost a year later than I’d originally planned to.)

28

Yeah, never torture yourself or work out to the point of exhaustion. All that makes you want to do is never exercise again. You like to dance? Put on some tunes and dance. You like to walk? Go hiking.

I also succeeded dramatically in exercise when I stopped thinking about weight loss. That was so discouraging. I’d weigh myself and the loss was so slow it was frustrating. I decided to change my goals to being healthier, getting to know people, getting out more, etc. And it’s been working wonders.

Also I beat my habit of procrastination in the last few years. People ask me how I did it, but I don’t know - I just decided one day it was going to stop. From then on, every time I thought of doing something, I just got up and did it. Even if I didn’t really need to do it that moment. It was a pain in the ass in the beginning but slowly I got into the habit of it and now I am the other way - I almost never procrastinate and get things done efficiently and quickly.

It is a sea change, but once you come out the other side, you feel great.