Anticipation

When you’re about to undergo a project, does simply looking forward to it morph into anticipation, and then quickly become unfulfilled obsession? Does me. If you’ve been reading these blogs…

When you’re about to undergo a project, does simply looking forward to it morph into anticipation, and then quickly become unfulfilled obsession? Does me.

If you’ve been reading these blogs regularly, you know I built a shed to house garage stuff, and thus allow me to completely redesign my shop layout. Well, the shed’s done – has been for a couple weeks – but I have several deadlines to meet right now and can’t possibly get started on my shop rebuild. And it’s making me crazy.

I can be a procrastinator sometimes and I’m cool with that, but when external items on my to-do list force procrastination on me, it drives me nuts. I want to be out there redoing my shop so badly I can taste it. Constantly thinking about it intrudes upon other things (work mostly), and I find myself lying in bed at night pining to get started “maybe tomorrow.”

But the enforced wait hasn’t been all bad. For one thing, work deadlines mean paychecks. For another, a crush of deadlines happening concurrently usually means a lull will follow, further meaning that when I do get started on the shop I’ll have a good bit of uninterrupted time.

What’s more, having the extra time to think about what I’m going to do has ensured that I won’t rush into any one shop solution. I’ve been tossing several ideas around, and in taking the extra time before getting started – although that extra time has been forced on me rather than my taking extra time through personal wisdom and restraint – I’ve embellished some of those ideas and discarded others. My new shop, as a result, will be all the better.

In retrospect, this enforced delay in getting started on my shop rebuild is a good thing.

But the wait to get started is killing me.

Till next time,

A.J.

 A.J. Hamler is the former editor of Woodshop News and Woodcraft Magazine. He's currently a freelance woodworking writer/editor, which is another way of stating self-employed. When he's not writing or in the shop, he enjoys science fiction, gourmet cooking and Civil War reenacting, but not at the same time.