nap
verb (naps, napping, napped) [ no obj. ] sleep lightly or briefly, especially during the day. she took to napping on the beach in the afternoons.
noun short sleep, especially during the day: excuse me, I'll just take a little nap.
PHRASES catch someone napping Brit. informal find someone off guard and unprepared to respond: the goalkeeper was caught napping by a shot from Carpenter.
ORIGIN Old English hnappian, probably of Germanic origin.
Still digging among my clippings and files of ideas, I found a review of a book, The Procrastination Cure, by Jeffery Combs. He is Jeffery Combs is “an Internationally recognized trainer, speaker, coach and author in the Network Marketing, Direct Sales and Personal Development. Jeffery specializes in Prospecting, Leadership, Live Presentations, Personal Breakthrough Coaching, Addiction Coaching, Prosperity Consciousness, Mindset Training, and all levels of effective marketing.” That’s from the blurb about him online. He is a self-help merchant, I gather. So why was he being reviewed (seriously?) in the New York Times? And why did I save the report of an academic conference on procrastination held at the University of Oxford, citing Combs as a source of help in crushing “the beast”, procrastination, because it’s considered a symptom of mental illness.
And I think I’m suffering from it in my current struggle with files.
Some famous procrastinators of the past were described, including one fairly well-known, fairly recent author, Egyptian-born French novelist, Albert Cossery (1913-2008). Apparently he had a “strict schedule of idleness”. He is praised for his “masterfully unprolific work”. He wrote eight novels, three of which were made into movies. ( Not bad!) He considered ”laziness” not a vice but “a form of contemplation and meditation”. It doesn’t sound like mental illness to me.
No help at all.
I’m getting a lot of other things done while I look at my unbudging , recalcitrant, stubborn mess of files. Dither, dawdle and delay. Also decide - slowly. I remember telling you the reward I discovered when I found a mysterious cardboard box on the top shelf of a cupboard shortly after I had moved. It contained mending that I didn’t need to do any more because it didn’t fit anyone I knew. Bliss. So with these files, the few I have looked at. I am finding imperatives, noodges, deadlines and reminders that I no longer have to do anything about. Past their date. I guess I am too. I have to think about that.
After a nap.