Lesser evils

I’m finishing up an on-contract job I really don’t want to work on, but I’m having the time of my life with it. Sort of.

Whether it’s work out in the shop, design work, planning, packaging, writing or any other aspect of what I do, time has to be spent doing it. That’s typical for small business people, and I suspect it’s the same for you. But when you’re juggling several things you’re contracted for, every once in a while there’s one chore you just don’t feel like working on for one reason or another.

I’m prone to procrastinate certain jobs that I just don’t feel like dealing with at the moment. Sometimes it’s because the task requires a particular setup that needs to be done first, and I don’t want to spend the time setting things up right now. Sometimes it involves a procedure I don’t enjoy. And sometimes it’s just because the job is simply an onerous job, and I only agreed to do it for the money. But as long as I hit a deadline and deliver (close to) on time, I’ll happily work on something else in the meantime. I’d prefer to, in fact.

There’s one particular moderately disgusting, doing-it-for-the-bucks job I’ve been avoiding as long as possible. I still have plenty of time on it, though, so there’s been a long list of others I’d rather do to productively occupy my time. But I recently wrapped up all those other jobs, which are on their way to clients with corresponding checks on their way to me.

I just took another job only for the money, and it’s probably the least favorite thing I’ve done in a while. I have some time on it, so I can put off starting it as long as I’m doing something else productive in the meantime. But as I look around I have just one other yet-to-be-fulfilled job left that I can work on instead, and it’s that moderately disgusting one. It would be difficult to tell you just how eagerly I’m jumping into that heretofore disgusting job to avoid starting on the other.

The funny part is that in spite of how onerous I’d considered it up till now, I really am enjoying working on it.

A.J.