Lifestyle

The Mother Load: The benefits of procrastinating

The Mother Load
Nancy Crochiere
Published: November 25, 2009

It's 5:15 p.m. on a Saturday, and I'm sitting in my car outside the gym.

I've been here for 10 minutes without making any movement toward the entrance or, for that matter, any noticeable effort at opening the car door. Someone watching might wonder if I'm casing the joint — perhaps plotting to make off with some giant bouncy balls or 12-pound hand weights. (If so, the getaway wouldn't be pretty.)

But no, in fact, I'm merely preparing to work out. So far, "preparing to work out" has involved:

Untangling my iPod earphones.

Drinking some water (because, really, you should start hydrating 30 minutes before working out).

Checking my cell phone to see if anyone has left me a message.

Text messaging my teenager, just in case she wonders where I am.

Waiting to see if she texts me back.

Finally resetting the car clock for daylight-saving time.

Reorganizing the pens in my purse.

Some people would see this as procrastination. I see it as time management.

The gym closes at 6 p.m. on weekends. If I time things right, when I enter the gym, I'll have just barely enough time to complete my workout. I couldn't possibly lift more weights or do more sit-ups, even if I wanted to. "What can I do?" I shrug to no one in particular (as there's no one in sight.) "The place is closing."

Over the last few years, I've closed down this gym with the regularity that other people close down bars.

OK, maybe I do, in fact, procrastinate, but not just at the gym — I'll put off any exercise as long as possible. For example, say I plan to go for a run around my neighborhood. All afternoon, I keep a close watch on the amount of daylight left and wait until sundown is imminent. Now I have the motivation. I'll have to run fast if I want to be able to see the road in front of me. (Remember, "fast" is a relative term in my case.)

And yet even then, with daylight waning, I find reasons to delay:

I search for my favorite running shorts in the dryer.

I unload the dryer so the other clothes don't wrinkle.

I jog to the kitchen to pour myself a glass of water, dumping what I don't drink into a potted plant.

I feel the accusing eyes of the other plants on me. Why is the Christmas cactus getting watered and we're not?

I water all the plants, taking this opportunity to prune some dead leaves from the ficus.

You get the picture. The person who invented reflective running gear clearly had my back.

Of course, the unspoken benefit of all this procrastination is that it's extremely productive. At any other point in the day, wiping the kitchen cabinets seems about as fun as poking a sharp stick in my eye, but when I'm faced with a 3-mile run, it's no surprise to find me on my knees, scrubbing away. I suddenly notice mold on the shower tiles, stairs that need to be swept or something that leaked in the refrigerator.

"Have you seen all that dust on top of the window frames?" I'll say to my husband. "I really need to get on that."

"Avoiding the gym?" he asks.

He thinks he's so smart.

And so it goes. At this same time, I had two loads of laundry going, dishes washed, counters wiped and an hour before the gym closed. My husband was hustling me out the door, saying we need to move on with our evening, but still I was protesting, "I haven't filled all the soap containers."

I finally acquiesced, grabbing my water bottle and racing out the door.

What he doesn't know is that I still had plenty of time to reorganize my glove compartment.

¢¢¢

Nancy Crochiere is a freelance writer and editor who tries to look at the vagaries of modern family life with humor. You can e-mail her in care of ndn@newburyportnews.com.