I have so many good ideas. You probably do, too. They start out innocently. “I’d love to do that, “I think, and add them to my goal list. Or wake up at night and scribble it down on the notepad next to the bed. Of course I can’t read it in the morning, but so it must be important, it goes in the pile on my desk.

Some of these things I do start. I have library books out, folders, exercise plans, necessary gear and a to-do list that’s way too long. Some days I don’t do anything on it!

So I start another list and yet and another that are mostly the same things but it’s too much work to figure out what’s what. That’s when I realized that my to-do list had become a virtual junk drawer. I didn’t even want to look at it (to be truthful, them). In fact, I wasn’t getting anything done at all. I was paralyzed by procrastination.

Paralyzed by Procrastination

I firmly believe there are no problems, only solutions we don’t know about yet so I went looking for one. I figured if I can control spending too much money I could use the same technique to control my time. After all, time is money. We exchange one time (work) for something someone else is willing to pay for and we get paid in money.

It’s like the theory of relativity linking energy and time. Money = Time Well Spent. And I was spending mine avoiding the piles that had become my virtual junk drawer.

Use the Thirty Day List to Control Time

Spending is easy to control when you use the Thirty Day List. Anything that isn’t already budgeted goes on it, whether it is clothing, a spa treatment, a home repair, a vacation, new electronics or anything else you are hyperventilating over but don’t actually need right now.

At the end of the month, review your thirty day list. Aren’t you glad you didn’t buy those shoes you can’t walk in? The new laptop since your old one is still working fine? Of course if you still want that gym membership, you know it’s something you’ll value and not an impulse you will regret paying for.

Time and the projects, invitation and promises to do things for others work the same way. Instead of your to-do list, try starting a Thirty Day List of those fun ideas. It was such a relief to admit that I can’t do all these things and there is no real reason to do them, either. I went through the virtual junk drawer and created a single excel list on my desk top and scheduled an hour to review it again a month from now.

Amazingly enough, I’m no longer paralyzed by procrastination. I can’t believe how many really important things are getting done and all with a clean desk, too.