Doing what I have to do...

I have had Dysthymia for years...moderate depression, not awful, but always there. Meds help and day to day, I'm ok. My biggest problem is doing what I need to do. When I think about making a phone call, I can come up with 100 reasons not to and ultimately decide that something will go wrong if I make the call. If someone asks me to find something, chances are I know where it is, but have slight panic that I won't be able to find it. So, I don't look for it. If I'm under pressure, I do it and do a pretty good job of it, as a rule, but until it hits the deadline, I don't do it. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

welcome ! Great to have a new member. Reading on your post, Have you tried lists. Making a checklist for diff stuff with diff time frames?

Hello, and welcome to PC & the depression forum.
Your description sounds very much like myself. What I try to do (but doesn't always work) is start off with a very small task, and gradually move on to bigger ones. (For example, promise myself I'll do 5 minutes of exercise. Most of the time, it ends up being about 30 minutes.)

oh I relate to this so much. haha.

Oftentimes it helps me to multitask while doing things I dont like to do. For example, I may post once on PC and then do 5 flashcards for homework. and just alternate so the thing i hate doing actually gets done (abeit more slowly).

Do you have a therapist, THESEEKERIN540?

Am not currently seeing a therapist. Saw one for almost 2 years and got a lot out of it.

I agree that long standing behaviors like this are best tackled with a therapist. Any chance you can go back to your old T?

Can't got back to the same T, but could find another one in a few months. It's a $$ thing right now. Having been through several years of therapy, I would like to be able to work through this myself, but I'm open to the possibility.

This is some advice my therapist gave me, I am not sure how much it applies to your situation but maybe it will be some help. She told me that if you have something you need to get done instead of giving yourself all day Saturday to get it done, give yourself a smaller time frame. Such as giving yourself from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. to get something done you think will take you about an hour or less. Then at 11 a.m. plan to go out to lunch with your friends or something. This in a way "forces" you to sit down and do whatever you are trying to get done in that hour time frame. Then it gets done and you are not still procrastinating about doing it at 8:00 p.m. on Saturday night. I don't know if this is helpful, but it has helped me out to a certain extent in motivating myself.