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Old Sep 26, 2007, 03:23 PM
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Perna Perna is offline
Pandita-in-training
 
Member Since: Sep 2006
Location: Maryland
Posts: 27,289
I invented my Rutabaga Response Technique (RRT) for when I feel like you describe. . . The word "rutabaga" always makes me smile because it is such a ridiculous word to "hear"/say, etc. so when I am being sucked into the blackhole of "Dontwannaland" I decide, arbitrarily, to initiate my Rutabaga Response. I say, "Rutabaga!" very loudly and firmly and then march toward the thing I least want to do in the whole world (clean the bathroom?) and on the way, I find there's something else much easier, or more "rewarding" I'd "rather" do; take a nice warm shower and get clean, or change my sheets (and then take the nice warm shower as a reward and fall into them for a well-earned nap :-) and, sometimes, whatever I'm doing grabs me enough and the movement is enough to get me started and I do a couple things and find I feel a bit better. I keep going forward until I do feel better or keep repeating my "Rutabaga!" war cry and heading for the most boring, awful task "next".

I don't really care if I do chores necessarily or if I work on some of my projects/hobbies. Too, your rutabaga task might be writing a letter to your grandmother or something, doesn't have to be "physical" just has to be something you really really don't want to do :-) You should be able to find a heirarchy of things and some of them aren't too bad and the realization you only have to do a couple of them and only one at a time (take out one bag of trash, the "smelliest" :-) you don't have to take out all the trash in the whole place) and you can "cheat" and pile books, papers, etc. "neater" and that counts! Just taking the laundry from the bedroom to in front of the washer counts, taking the dishes from the living room into the kitchen counts, etc.
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