Stop fucking procrastinating

Stop fucking procrastinating and transfer all your to-do tasks from your inbox to your calendar.

Your inbox is supposed to be for new messages, so why are you treating it like a task list? That's what a to-do list is for. Go through your inbox, write down the tasks on a sheet of paper, and archive the emails. Now work from your to-do list and add newly-emailed tasks to the list immediately.

Ubiquitous capture is yet another idea discussed in Getting Things Done.

Stop fucking procrastinating and book your car in for a service.

Or your bike, or your boiler, or whatever else is supposed to get a regular professional seeing-to.

If you sniggered at "regular professional seeing-to", 10 points have been deducted from your maturity score.

Stop fucking procrastinating and shred some old paperwork stuffed in the bottom of a drawer.

Or in a box, or under the bed, or on a corner of the desk. Don't try to pretend you don't have a pile of miscellaneous papers. Shred it. Shred it all. Scan anything you'll actually need to use again.

Don't even think about organising it; you're not the Library of Congress. The aim is to have less paper, not an equal amount of better-arranged paper.

Stop fucking procrastinating and sort out that pile of papers you laughably call a filing system.

YOU WILL NEED: papers, a flat space. Make 4 piles: keep, scan, recycle, shred. "Keep": anything you'd grab when leaving a burning building. "Scan": anything you'd wish you'd grabbed when leaving the burning building. "Recycle": anything generic. Everything else gets shredded. The scanned stuff gets shredded afterwards.

Electronic copies take up no physical space. Keep important paperwork to one ring binder and you'll thank me next time you move.

Stop fucking procrastinating and pay that bill you keep putting off.

You've had two reminders already and it's still sitting in a stack of papers. Pay it. Pay it now. Call up and pay over the phone, mail a cheque, whatever. Jesus, it's like you don't want electricity to your house.

Bonus points: automate the payment so we don't repeat this debacle next month.

Stop fucking procrastinating and list that thing on eBay you've been prevaricating over.

There's something you've been meaning to sell. Today's the day! It's going on eBay now, and in 10 days it'll be out of your life. Pick something big so you clear the most space in one go.

I've written up some tips for eBay that may help.

Stop fucking procrastinating and wash your bedclothes.

You're going to skew one of two ways here: domestic goddess or slovenly layabout. If you're on this site, chances are it's the latter. Today is a perfect day to wash your bedding and put a fresh set on.

Bonus tip: add a recurring reminder to your calendar telling you to change them regularly.

Stop fucking procrastinating and wash your towels.

Much like bedclothes, you're either doing this too frequently or too rarely. I'm guessing 'rarely'. Stick them in the washing machine on a hot wash and add a recurring reminder to your calendar to do it again in a couple of weeks.

Don't forget the teatowels.

Stop fucking procrastinating and make a decent to-do list for the rest of the day.

Your to-do list is filled with crap that you added months ago, or you can't do right now, or is no longer relevant. How the fuck do you expect to use that to help you? Get a blank piece of paper and write down everything that you need to accomplish today. Put a star next to the 3 most important things. Now get started.

Yearning for a better to-do list? You need to read Getting Things Done by David Allen.

Stop fucking procrastinating and change your smoke alarm batteries.

That thing can save your life. Keep it working. Think the battery's fine? Go jab the test button, just to be sure.

Protip: 9V batteries in the house will save you from days of annoying beeping.