D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away)

Like many people, I'm a chronic procrastinator.

I keep meaning to change my ways, but well, maybe later, eh?

The trouble with that is that I keep making problems for myself.

Here are a couple of recent examples:

1. Back in the spring, I had a money order made up to include with my application to put a driveway in on my land. I postponed submitting the application and I have since misplaced (i.e. lost) the money order. It's for $300. Enough to make a typical south shore person conform to the laws around driveways. Enough to hurt. (Except the bank was able to reissue it, phew).
2. A week or so ago, I received a new credit card to replace one that is about to expire. I thought, I'll activate that later – and now I can't find it. 

Apart from these acute examples, there is also the chronic condition of my home, my car and my finances to contend with. Drifts of things tend to mount up and deteriorate into chaotic messes.

I'm getting better with my finances. It's taken me a while and there have been some bumps along the way, but I am sticking with YNAB and it is now rare for me to go for more than 2 or 3 weeks without taking stock of all of my income and expenses. When I'm having a really good week, I track almost everything on the spot, using my phone. This hasn't really helped me make better decisions about my spending yet, but I'm hopeful that as I continue to get the hang of it, I'll start being happier with the ways I choose to spend my money.

And losing that credit card has motivated me to reconsider the number of credit cards I have. They are just making work for me to track and reconcile them. It's not worth it for a few lousy points toward whatever.

I'm going to try to adopt the acronym, D.I.R.A. (Do It Right Away) as a simple way to remind myself to take care of things (especially little things) immediately, instead of letting them mold and fester. Another possible acronym is R.A.P. (Right Away, Please). I would use A.S.A.P., but As Soon As Possible is too open to interpretation. Except when my clients use it, ASAP just means "when you want to", which in terms of me taking care of little things is basically never – or only when I'm forced to.

I've also thought up an expanded version of the DIRA acronym:

D – Documented: there is no point putting thing in a safe place if one doesn't know where that safe place is. So from now on whenever I put something "somewhere safe", I'm going to send myself an email with an easily searchable subject line, like "Where is my Passport?"
I – Intentional: think about the right place for something and put it there. (In other words, stop dropping things carelessly on the passenger seat of my car and later tipping them carelessly onto the floor of the back seat because I want to give someone a lift. Upon arriving home from my mailbox, each piece of paper needs to be dealt with – sorted into recycling, acted upon and/or filed.
R – Resolute: be consistent. Do It Right Away. Every Time.
A – Accepting: I know that this is going to be challenging for me. If it came naturally, I'd have been doing it all along. I will need to jolly myself along, with lots of humour and affection. And get gently back on the wagon each time I fall off.

With present moment consciousness, anytime I see a piece of paper (or anything else) that I haven't dealt with promptly, I always have the option to DIRA. Even if it has been kicking around for months or years, right away can be right now.

Permissions #1: The Driveway Application

(No doubt the first in a long series of posts about seeking permission to do things on my land...)

I submitted my driveway application today.

I had been going to submit it way back in March when I was going through the process of buying my land.

The application needs to be accompanied by a $300 refundable fee. You submit the application, they tell you what you need to do in terms of culvert size and (re)location (if the placement you desire is not okay with them), and after you put the driveway in, they come to see if you have complied and if you have, they give you your $300 back.

(Something in me finds it very funny to think that $300 is the price of compliance around here. Well, now we know.)

Anyway, I got the money order made up in March - and then, I couldn't decide where I wanted the driveway to be. I hemmed and hawed, waiting for all that snow to melt. In the end, I accepted that I had no idea what I was doing and needed more time. I postponed doing the application, waiting until I had a better sense of what I wanted to do.

At some point between then and now, I lost the money order. 

Damn, I do stuff like that all the time. 

I live in chaos - usually busy, often tired, often rushing, and chronically resistant about putting things away (or indeed putting things anywhere other than where they land when they arrive in my life, which is why my car is always such a mess).

So many pieces of (necessary administrative) paper end up buried, misplaced and/or completely lost. 

The last time I saw that first money order, it was in my wallet. I thought I cleaned it out onto my desk in early May, but it seems more likely that I would have taken it out before I went away on a trip in April. Who knows? I have conducted a fairly extensive search, but it has never been seen again.

It definitely didn't help that I lived in three different places in April, in addition to traveling for 10-days. Plus, I burned a number of boxes of papers earlier this summer, clearing out a lot of useless things – but perhaps accidentally, a few very useful things?

Fortunately, the bank is able to put a caution on the money order and retrieve the funds. And all my carelessness cost me was an extra $7.50 to have another money order issued.

Once I got the replacement money order today, I went (almost) straight to the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal with my application and submitted it.

This is me trying to turn over a new leaf – the Do It Right Away leaf.

But more about that later, I think.

For now, I'm just happy to report that I am one step further ahead with my project.

My friends and I cut down more trees on
my land last week. Here is a photo of the
clearing where I think I'm going to put
my Tiny Home.