Delaying the Inevitable

I'm a pro at putting off things that are inevitable. In case you'd like to put some of my techniques to use, here are some tried and true ideas.

1) When you see that the dishes are piling up in the sink, reorganize the counter so that more go in the sink, so you can put more on the counter when you need to. Everyone knows you don't have to do dishes until there is no more room to put dishes.
You can also soak the dishes that are super crusty, because everyone knows you can't do dishes that are super crusty.

2) If the floor is badly in need of a good "knees on the floor" scrub, buy a swiffer. If that isn't good enough, then use it. Don't bother moving the furniture. You'll get around to a good scrub eventually. You have time in your schedule next April. I recently vacuumed the kitchen. It's not such a bad substitute, really.

3) Let's say your car safety inspection is expiring. You definitely get at least a day grace period when it does expire. Then call your local safety inspector and ask him if he can do it. When he says, "No, call on Wednesday," wait until Thursday, so that he can tell you to call again on Monday, and so forth. This way, you are involving others in your putting off-ness, and you can even complain about it. Then others see that you are clearly trying to do something about it, but the forces of nature are colliding against you.

4) If you have a for sure something's wrong with you disease, and you feel awful, look up your symptoms on the internet. Then tell everyone about it. After listening to several friends and a spouse tell you to make a doctor's appointment, consider which kind of doctor you should go to. During this time have no real plans to make an appointment because everyone knows you should not ever confirm a "for sure something's wrong with you disease." Everyone knows this leads to "for sure something's wrong with you" treatment, which involves needles or small scopes built for small places. Instead you should wait until you are either so uncomfortable that your spouse calls a doctor for you, or your symptoms change slightly so that you can research a different "something is probably wrong with you" disease and start the process again.

5) Your neck has been telling you recently that you're getting old. The lines are standing out stronger than your chin line. The best thing for you to do here is to buy some products that work really hard, pumping their arms up and down all night and bathe your skin in plumping moisture while you sleep. Everyone knows that the inevitable here is surgery, but you haven't saved up enough money yet, since you're spending it all on "make your skin look like it will tomorrow" night cream.

Surely you've noticed now that delaying is hard work, which is probably why I never have any time to do anything else.