Tag: procrastination

Yelly Writes

The Procrastination Monster

Yelly

I’ve heard it said so many times and in a multitude of iterations: If you have something to do, do it. Do it now. Before fear or self-doubt takes hold!

I’m a planner…and a procrastinator. I hide the procrastination behind beautifully engineered plans that are, eventually, expertly executed. My mom was also famously a don’t-do-until-due person. She did everything flawlessly too, but under great haste. I always used to joke that my procrastination was genetic.

One day, I read somewhere that procrastination was fear of failure in disguise. And THAT was a lightbulb moment. It felt like a string of fairly lights started twinkling! In my case, it was most certainly the most lethal of combinations: my need for perfection and my fear of failure. I was putting off doing things because my nervous system saw the situation or task as a threat — because in my head I was going to fail spectacularly, people would l see me as a fraud, and I would again, get tangible proof that I am inept, incapable, and a complete impostor.

I am learning to stop listening to the Negative Nancy in my head. Because I know what I can do and I am actually really capable. I am learning to face the wall of anxiety and tackle the paralysis. I am:

  • 🏷️ Naming it: Fear of failure / missing the mark
  • 🔨 Breaking it down into manageable tasks
  • ⏱️ Giving myself 10/15 mins to accomplish tasks
  • 🧘🏻‍♀️Forcing myself to breathe through the anxiety.

I am a work in progress. But I am naming my imperfections. I am naming my fears. I am facing them. Slowly. Surely. One by one.

@yellycups

Yelly Writes

Da who?

Yelly

I’ve had a lot of change and upheaval happen since I last blogged.

I sometimes look at myself, where I am and what I’m doing and I wonder who the hell is looking back at me. There are glimpses of a person who seems familiar, and then there are days when I have absolutely no idea who this person looking back at me in the mirror is.

I’ve been through a lot, even more so in the last 3 weeks. I’ve not been well and like this unshiftable tickle in my throat, I think I’m battling a subsumed mental health struggle. But I think I’m avoiding tackling it because if I tackle it, I’ll unravel, and right now, I can’t unravel.

I tell my mum off for being an ostrich, but bury-your-head-in-the-sand tendencies are very much genetic. I have the worst procrastinator gene and the worst avoid -it until-you-can-no-longer-avoid-it habit.

I don’t necessarily recognise this avoidant behaviour in myself. I’m usually good at facing things head on.

But like the picture below , I don’t recognise myself these days.

Photo by @the_yukistar
Yelly Writes

The Massive Sort Out

Yelly

So I’ve been at the new digs for a month now, officially. But I still haven’t finished sorting out the things I’ve brought over. I still don’t know how I managed to accumulate so much tat in the time that I’ve been living in London.

If you’ve moved houses, how long did it take you to sort out all the things that you packed into boxes and storage boxes? Is this normal? Or am I just procrastinating again?

I can quite shake the feeling that there are things I need that I haven’t actually thought of. But of course, if I don’t sort out my stuff, I won’t know what I have and don’t have and I won’t have a clear picture of what I do and don’t need.

That should give me enough motivation to sort things out, eh?

Maybe.

Yelly Eats

Watermelon cake anyone?

Yelly

We had a summer themed charity Bake Off at work.  I procrastinated (as is usual for me these days) with the Cakebook Challenge and put off my baking.  I need to get back into baking through the book.  I’ve lost so much time!  But I digress.  So at work we had, what I’d call a charity bake sale.  The theme was summer.  So I thought what would be better than a watermelon cake eh?

Watermelon cake

I thought it would be really cool to decorate a red velvet cake with cream cheese frosting and make it look like a watermelon.  I thought that putting in chocolate chips would make the chips look like the pips.  The idea is that when you sliced the cake, it’d look like a real watermelon because the inside would be red and the chocolate chips would look like pips and the whole thing would resemble half a watermelon.  Or so I thought.  I may have gone a bit overboard with the red food colouring and it turned out to be a really dark red.  I had a little batter leftover so I thought I’d make a few ice cream cone cupcakes.

Inside the watermelon cake

I got second prize for best tasting cake.  But the afterthought cakes aka the ice cream cone cakes won best decorated!  Sadly I don’t have any pictures of the ice cream cone cakes.  I must make them again.  Soon.  After I surface from the Cakebook Challenge!

Can I just say though that sometimes I wish it was easier to transport cakes to work.  There has to be an easier way…but that entails spending a shedload of cash on a car.  Sigh.

Yelly Writes

Breaking the silence!

Yelly

My excuse:  I’ve been busy.

Life has a way of interrupting writing.  Which I find really annoying!  I must find time to write because when I don’t vent, I become grouchy and grumpy and ornery!

I tell myself it’s all the writing muses’ faults.  They have abandoned me again.  But that’s not entirely true.  If I really want to write about things (ANYTHING!), I should make time to write down my thoughts.  Even my exercise in journal writing has ground to a halt because I don’t make time.

I have been busy in the kitchen though.  I’ve been making bread completely by hand!  I’ve discovered that kneading the dough helps my carpal tunnel syndrome.  I’ve made pan de sal several times now and now I know that the perfect cooking time is 11.5 minutes!   At least in my oven, it’s 11.5 minutes.  I’ve also found the perfect blondies recipe.  I’ve made it about 4 times now and each time it’s been a success…and have managed to add a few tweaks to the recipe enough that I can now call the recipe my own.

I’ve set myself a challenge for the next few weekends.  I am going to

  • make profiteroles
  • make puff pastry
  • make a roulade

I also need to start using my Goldilocks Cakebook.  Goldilocks is an iconic chain of bakeries in the Philippines and I want to try the recipes so I can bring a little bit of the Philippines to my little corner of England.

I’ve got most of everything under a semblance of control.  Now all I have to do is discipline myself to write regularly!  Big ask, you say?  Not really.  I just need to push myself to write.  Because the excuse that I can’t find the words isn’t quite true.  I talk enough for 2 people, so all I just have to do is to close my mouth and let my fingers do the talking for a little bit!

Here’s to hoping the next entry isn’t too far away!