How to Get Things Done

Is winter closing in before you've built a woodheap sufficient for your needs?  Are your onion seedlings drowning in a sea of chickweed?  Are your grapevines and fruit trees threatening to welcome spring before you've wielded the secateurs?  Is your chimney holding less smoke than your living room?  Is your "To Do" list growing faster than your "Done" list?

Never fear - the answer is here.  In one simple step, the solution to all these problems is at hand.  All you need to do is sit down at the table for half an hour, pen poised over paper, and commence the novel that has been lurking within you for so long.

At the end of half an hour, put pen and paper down and promise yourself that, now you have begun, you will return to the task tomorrow, full of diligence and enthusiasm.  Before you know it, the publisher will be writing the cheque, and your masterpiece will be gracing the windows of every bookshop, just in time for the Christmas rush.

Or that, at least, is the plan - instead, by tomorrow evening, the gardens will be free of weeds; by the end of the week, not only will the pruning be complete, but there will be a row of pots on the bench by the garden shed, each with its carefully trimmed cutting in place, ready to add to the garden next summer.  By Sunday afternoon, the firewood will be stacked so high and so neatly that people will begin asking if you are setting up a wood-selling business.

"No time for that" you will say "I have to finish my novel" and you will set off for your study - with a minor detour to the landscaping yard to buy the pavers with which to construct that path you promised to build ten years ago.  It is truly remarkable how much can be acheived when that novel is lurking in the shadows - but, look, is that a wobbly tread on the back steps?  If I'm quick I can get to the timber yard before they close, and then I will be able to start preplacing that tread first thing tomorrow - or, at least, after I catch up with mowing the lawns.

And yet, it is remarkable what can be achieved when the pen is taken up again, and that first ink is spidered across the page - why is it so often so difficultto get started?  Oh, look, there's that runner I bought months ago to replace the broken one on my beach fishing rod.