Book-ending

When you have a bunch of books, you need some "bookends", or heavy objects to hold them up from sliding off.

That is also the name my daughter gives the latest countermeasure to procrastination.

After all these years of paperwork for each child I have fostered and adopted, I am never happy to see the arrival of another biannual request for information.   I put it aside for later...and try to clean a drawer, play a game on the laptop, bake supper.

Annalisa told me about calling her, and beginning with a "baby step", any one I felt I could do easily.
She would choose a job she also had been reluctant to do, choose a "baby step" and we would call in fifteen minutes, to "bookend" with our report.

"Yes, I've cleared the kitchen table,"  I said.
"I've found the pencils," she bookended.
Now we go to the next step, and commit to call in fifteen minutes after the next baby step.  I will spread out the papers, she will find the books she needed.
The next time we call we go for, "I'll fill in the first page," and call back tonight.

What we have found out, is that the beginning is the hardest.  We seem to see projects "in their totality".  If we just find a first, tiny baby step to take, and have a friendly voice help encourage us to take it, it becomes  less daunting.
Once started, the work is really not that difficult.  It is with another person's support and positive words that it becomes more of a challenge to continue and complete.

Bookending really works.  Even when we cannot reach each other, we feel committed to reach the next step, and make more progress than if we had not kept in touch.

What a great way to have contact with someone you love.