I am acutely aware that my procrastination not only affects me but my husband as well. Here I am whining and complaining about what I have missed because of procrastination and how it is hurting me, while at the same time it is impacting my husband’s life too.
Two Saturdays ago my husband said to me, “I am really upset with your behaviour”.
Here is the reason why. That week one of my goals was to tidy my husband’s toolbox. He received a new box with small drawers to store screws and such. I actually wanted to please him with this gesture since he has been working long hours for weeks now and hasn’t had a free day in a long time. The result was that the dining room table and floor was covered with screws of all sizes and other bits and pieces for the whole week. Theoretically I could have organised the contents of the toolbox in a day. Why did I take longer? Well procrastination is like an addiction. One can always find a reason to justify one’s behaviour without admitting one is addicted. Likewise I did not see it as procrastinating; rather I told myself that I needed my husband’s input on how he wanted the contents to be arranged in his new toolbox. It is totally logical, right? Only problem was that my husband worked overtime the whole week and did not fancy going through the contents of his toolbox when he was at home. However he appreciated the fact that I was doing this for him.
That morning in question we were expecting a visit from my parents-in-law. I knew that we would be having meals together and as mentioned the dining room was not in a usable state. So I tidied up the table, arranging some of the stuff into the new toolbox according to my own system and putting the other stuff back into the old toolbox. While I was at it, I vacuumed and mopped the floor of the whole apartment as well. (I have to add that I hate household chores. Poor hubby! He is stuck with a housewife, who doesn’t keep house.) I was pretty pleased with what I had accomplished within 2 hours.
Now we are back at the point, when my husband expressed he is mad at me. (He was so mad that he gave me the silent treatment first.) Then it gushed out of him. “Why don’t you clean up the apartment for me? But you easily do it when we have visitors. The whole week I put up with stuff lying around and all of a sudden it is gone!”
In that moment I reacted defensively and gave him the reason I had given myself for not putting the stuff away earlier. But even to my ears it sounded lame. Despite my colour coded goal list, which had a yellow for this task, I have been procrastinating big time and as a result hurt my husband and this is not the only area that I have been procrastinating on.
I have double the reason to break my habit of procrastinating. For now all I can say is, “Sorry honey!” But he has heard that too many times before. 😦
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