Forgetting

I've wanted to give another shot at trying to express a difficulty I perceive which manifests as procrastination. As I'm reflecting I realize that procrastination is not a simple thing. It can be the result of different kinds of dynamics at work, maybe not even all related.

I have explained how I am aware that I struggle to keep track of things. It is an effort to remember what it is I want to remember. Not just to remember the things I want to do, like my "To Do" list kind of things, but also the kind of things in general that I just think about. If I am not paying attention to what it is that I am paying attention to, I often loose tract of it and forget it. This happens even with the things that I am most interested in and that matter most to me.

What I have come to understand is that these things that I am thinking about that I want to keep tract of in my thinking will tend to come in and out of my acute conscious awareness in an apparently random haphazard fashion. Thoughts pop in, then pop out and I forget again. The more busy and hectic I tend to be the more in and out things seem to come and go. Ultimately I seem to always remember everything I want to, eventually. Just only when it happens to pop in, not when I need it to or when I want it to.

So here is the problem that leads to procrastination. Let me give a hypothetical. I have a day off. A chance to get a few things done. There are a lot of things popping in and out of my thinking. But I know that I can't remember everything that is there. Not on demand. As time passes though, then the things that I need to remember will surface over time. However, if I get involved in something that consumes my energy, time, attention and focus, then my chances of getting in touch with the things I want to think about goes way down. In fact, the more productive I become, the more involved in actually getting things done, the more I feel disoriented, detached, disconnected and anxious. I loose context, balance, the ground doesn't seem to be there. I become more and more likely to overlook or forget something important. I have to break off and get back in touch with what is going on in my head to get reoriented, reorganized, get my bearings.

So I experience a lot of resistance to getting things done because doing things distracts me from keeping tract of my scattered and disorganized thoughts. And loosing tract of my thoughts leads to negative consequences from forgetting important things and to anxiety from feelings of being lost and disoriented.