January, Time to Get Real Shit Done

The whole last six weeks from Thanksgiving to New Years and those carry over days after New Years until the first Monday of the year are my “take time off to do nothing but celebrate” weeks of the year. I don’t worry about doing anything that is not about a holiday, or family or friends. This means a few little jobs get by me, like my shoes have started a union in my closet and refuse to stay with their mate, except for those on the picket line outside my closet, who refuse to be put away at all.

Tonight is the end of all that lollygaging around. I did spend the day cooking for my friend Holley’s family, which felt restorative to me and productive. If only cooking could fix Holley. But since I am helpless to fix anyone, the least I can do is feed people.

I am one of those annoying AP’s. We are multi-taskers who the phrase, “If you want something done ask a busy person,” was actually created for. We tend to prioritize our tasks in order of importance. I was not always like this, but over the years I learned life is better if I do the important stuff first, just in case I run out of time. Thus cleaning out the attic has perceptually been on my list for the last say 29 years. Something else is always more important and as the years go on without it being done I have proven the point.

Tomorrow it’s time to get back to being actually productive. I’ve decided there are basically three types of people. The Truly Lazy (TL), the Actually Productive (AP) and the worst kind of all, those who are so busy doing all the wrong things that they say they can’t possibly get to the things they should be doing (Delusional). I will refer to these groups, by their parenthetical nicknames.

I don’t mind the TL’s. If you can get away with doing nothing, and like doing nothing then own it. These people don’t pretend to be something they are not. Good for them. That life would drive me crazy because I like to have tangible results.

Being an AP does not mean I get everything done, but if I say I am going to do something for you, I will. I will let my own shit slide to do something for someone else. And thus the attic.

The Delusionals are my least favorite group. We all have worked with some of these in our adult lives. These are people who are the ones who say they are the busiest. Appearing to be busy is their goal. When you call and ask how they are, “Busy” with a capital B is always the answer. The problem is what they are busy with is not always the most important thing. And just because they are busy they think they productive.

You are not productive if you let important things slide by because you felt like you had to reorganize you filing cabinet before filing your taxes. One thing doesn’t matter to anyone else and the other could send you to jail for not doing. Yeah, I know it will take years to go to jail for not filing your taxes, but the IRS will eventually get you.

The problem is the Delusionals are also the group who have a lot of anxiety about to do lists, but it is all about the number of tasks, rather than the importance. If I were to write down everything I needed to do in January it might stress me out, but if I only write down the most important, then do them, I won’t be stressed out about negotiating a new union contract with my shoes. My shoes are not important. But they are to the Delusionals.

So if you want to get stuff done this month, and isn’t that what January is all about? Resolutions, starting fresh, clean slate and the likes, then start with coming to grips with your personality type, are to a TL, AP or Delusional. If you don’t like that you might be a Delusional,