Procrastinating or Flirting - Which one is naughty?

Hello my Forty Fabulous friends! While I've been a bit quiet here, I continue to sound off on other sites. Here are two of my latest pieces that I hope you'll enjoy.


1. For The Succulent Wife, my new video on midlife crisis and how to get on with your life - because, I don't know about you, but I don't have time to waste.





2. And my latest Sex & the Suburbs column for Makeitbetter.net, a discussion on the merits of Flirting for Fun.
  

Flirting is a social art as old as Aristotle, and the upcoming holiday season is the perfect time to play the coquette.

It’s fun, it’s intellectual and it’s a bit of a thrill. Done correctly, a flirtation is a light, admiring, slightly sexy interaction that’s conducted purely for the pleasure of the moment.

In France, flirting is a way of life and every woman—regardless of her age or marital status—is considered fair game. Not to flirt is practically considered an insult. Here in the Midwest, single women can flirt their derrieres off, but women in relationships are more conflicted.

Tammy from Wilmette feels flirting is disloyal. “I don’t think it’s right to flirt with someone else’s husband,” she says. ( Read full article.)

Procrastinators be Proud: We're good at getting stuff done as long as it's not important.

You know why I'm writing this? Because I don't have to. I updated my blog just two days ago. What I should be working on is the feature article I promised the local Tribune. It was due like, yesterday. But I'm a procrastinator, so instead of working on that project, I'm spending time here. Last week, when I really needed to work on Forty Fabulous, I was too busy redecorating my daughter's room.

It's a myth that we procrastinators aren't productive. We're actually very good at completing non-essential tasks. It's the big ones we avoid. Jobs that are critical and time-sensitive (like paying the bills, for example) stress us out so much we get busy with a lot of little things that don't really matter. We empty the dishwasher, take the dog for a walk, clean out the junk drawer. Now, if those tasks were on the top of our lists, we'd probably pay the bills to avoid doing them!

I learned all this in a wonderful essay called Structured Procrastination by John Perry, a Stanford professor and cohost of NPR's Philosophy Talk. According to Perry, there's a way to harness the power of procrastination. All we have to do is put some bogus tasks at the top of our to-do lists, then trick ourselves into thinking that the stuff we really need to do is completely optional.

Perry acknowledges that this practice requires a certain amount of self-deception, but doesn't see it as a problem.

"Virtually all procrastinators have excellent self-deceptive skills," he says, "And what could be more noble than using one characer flaw to offset the bad effects of another?"

Okay, I'm up for trying this technique. I'm going to put "File Financial Statements" on the top of my list (ensuring it absolutely will not get done) and move "Write Trib Article" down toward the bottom. That way, maybe I'll come at least close to hitting my deadline.