As soon as I get this week’s column out of the way I’m going to get stuck into my latest home improvement project.

I’m really looking forward to it; that’s why I want to talk about it now.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with the finer details of my plans to rip out the creaking imitation-wood kitchen floorboards that the last owners put in, level the concrete slab and then lay new hardwood boards in their place.

No, that would be too dry even by MYOB standards.  What I want to talk about is the reason why I was looking forward to doing that job so much when I got out of bed this morning.

I’m not too happy about this but I don’t think it was so much that I wanted to get started on the floor as that I was really looking forward to being finished with this column.

And the reason I just said ‘wanted’ and ‘was’ in that last sentence is because that is no longer the case; something changed in my head while I was writing.

Isn’t that weird? And the even stranger thing is that I pretty much knew it would.

This situation is not at all unusual for me.  I have a deadline and I get all nervous trying to think of something not totally boring to write about, and then I do a few chores that don’t really need to be done just to give me something else to do instead of writing.

And then I finally get started…. and then, surprise… once a couple of sentences are down and I know where I’m going I really get into it and stop wishing I were already finished.

Well, okay; it doesn’t happen like that every week – the dread or the joy – but it is not at all uncommon.

I mean writing this thing is often a highlight of the week but I almost never look forward to getting started on it.

Another reason I think this getting started problem is worth writing about – along with the fact that it gives me something to write about – is that it often causes us to wish time away just so that something we think we have to do will be over, and that is a very negative way to live.

Or… maybe – here’s another weird thought – maybe it’s just not negative enough.

I’m in the homestretch of this column now so pretty soon I’ll be able to get started on that floor, but to tell you the truth that prospect doesn’t fill me with joy anymore.

It’s actually going to be bloody hard work and I’m not even sure I’ll get going on it today.

So maybe if I’d been a bit more negative and realised how unenthusiastic I was going to be about the renovation job once it was actually time to get started on it I wouldn’t have minded getting stuck into the writing instead.

I mean, hey, we have to do something with our time.

Why not just enjoy whatever is on our plate at the moment.

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