12. proactive

I know I wanted to write another "I am" blog today, but as I was scrolling down the list of words, it feels like it's getting harder and harder to pick words I think describe my training, or myself as a person, so I thought this time around I would pull a hard 180 and try to write a blog on a word on the list that I feel least describes who I am right now and see what comes out. So as Ray Arnold once said in Jurassic Park, hold onto ya butts"

I am (not) proactive.

 As I've mentioned before I am a terrible procrastinator. Anytime things make me uncomfortable or thinking about them makes the panic start to rise up my throat, my brain will put on the blinders and refuse to acknowledge it until those last critical moments arise. As a result I am often completing things right up against a deadline, or leaving things unchecked on my to-do list for months on end. Because of my lack of proactivity I have what feels like a mountains worth of big tasks that need to get done as soon as possible, and everyday I feel time slipping through my fingers and the list doesn't get any shorter, and often it's instead growing larger. I feel like I always start things with the best intentions but still find myself incapable of just doing the dang thing in a timely manner!

I think another contributing issue to this problem is lately my grasp on time has been increasingly nebulous. More than once lately I have ignored people's messages for weeks because I didn't notice that much time had already passed. I didn't get around to doing my August calendar until yesterday and was unaware that half the month had gone by already. Maybe it's because for the first time in my life I'm not in school so I'm left floundering through time without the rigid routine and schedule I'm so used to? Maybe it's the way I have my work-from-home hours laid out that gives me fleeting windows of time to try to work with? Maybe it's because August always feels like the "Sunday night" of the year, when you realize you've wasted most of your time off and important deadlines are quickly approaching?

I'm not exactly sure what my problem is, or how I can start to fix it, but I do know that it is a problem, and that I need to start taking steps to try to do better before this avalanche of tasks buries me. 

Maybe this is the first small step I can take.

I am proactive.

I am being proactive right now (or I guess retroactively, proactive? wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey stuff) by writing this blog early in the week so I will have a better chance to try to catch up on all the ones I missed earlier in the year. I make sure to do as many push-ups as I can right after I get dressed to know that I have a head-start on my count for the day. I've been getting (slightly) better at booking one-on-ones as soon as things come up that need to be addressed. I am good at organizing and prioritizing my tasks so that I know what needs to get done, and in what order to do them (now I just need to work on actually doing them). I am keeping up with my work responsibilities even if they are on somewhat shaky ground right now. I am getting better at being the first one to speak up when we're asked if we have questions, instead of waiting for someone else to go, or to not even mention anything at all. I have made some sort of start on a handful of the tasks that I really need to do, and have managed to put a slight dent in the task list as of late.  

I know that, because of the way I am, I have had to deal with many mountains of deadlines before and each time I made it out relatively unscathed, so even if I may not be a beacon of proactivity, I am at least proactive enough to survive this time around too. 

8/30