In the recent past I decided to start rephrasing things in my head. What I mean by this is that when I say something like, “I didn’t do xyz because of mno”, I rephrase that to be “I didn’t make xyz a priority because I felt mno was more important at that time”. What this does is it challenges my way of thinking of things. Instead of seeing reasons for not doing things as excuses, it changes things and I determine that some things are more important “right now”.
For example, we went kayaking today which was fun. The dogs went along and did a lot of swimming. They haven’t gotten baths in a while and were pretty stinky. When we got home I allowed myself to relax on the deck for a bit but then felt it was time to clean up the dogs. So they got baths on the deck. After that I knew they would need brushed and also were due for some fur trimming, so that was put next on my tasks.
One item that was and still is on my list is to clean Mickey’s tank. He was pretty stinky this morning so I know it needs it, but being able to brush and trim the dog’s fur when it’s clean doesn’t happen very often.
So while I need to clean the tank, it became less of a priority because these other items really needed done today versus tomorrow. Mickey can wait a day.
So basically I have started deciding what is more important to me at that time and trying to not make excuses for not doing them but recognize other items might take priority.