MetaChat - What's one dumb thing you do over and over?

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15 May 2011

What's one dumb thing you do over and over? →[More:]I find myself waiting until the evening to wash something I want to wear to work the next day. The washer is running at night when ideally chores should be over. Even more distressing is that the clothes are ready for the dryer about the time I'm ready for bed, or I'm dead tired and I'm waiting for the clothes to be ready for the dryer. My headboard and laundry room share a wall. I cannot stand the sound of the washer or dryer when I am trying to fall asleep. So, I turn it off and must wake up early to turn on the dryer. It's maddening and I do it repeatedly.

post by: LoriFLA at: 20:56 | 34 comments

Hey mine is laundry too! I wait until the night before I have a work trip and then I'm like "Shit, I don't have any good outfits to wear to give this talk!" and then I have to schlep out to the laundromat to do four loads of laundry the night before a talk when I should be packing.

posted by jessamyn 15 May | 20:58

The morning scramble.

I know what needs to get done in the morning. Gotta pack the kid's lunch, fix coffee, organize the kid's backpack, organize the stuff I need to take to work, make sure there's something clean to wear, straighten up the kitchen and go.

Yet it's always a scramble to get out the door. I have no problems waking up early and getting up. But those last 5-10 minutes are always a blur of "where are my keys, did he really just spill juice on his shirt, where is my folder of stuff I was working on last night-I need it for this meeting that I'm going to barely make on time, where is his other shoe, his jacket, do I have my cell phone and my 2 Diet Cokes for later and is there any coffee left and WHERE IS HIS OTHER SHOE, I'M GOING TO BE LATE AND I CAN'T STAND LATENESS.

I could avoid a lot of this by rounding things up the night before but it pretty much goes like this every day. And every morning I promise myself that tomorrow, it'll be different.

posted by Kangaroo 15 May | 21:21

Haha, sounds familiar, Kangaroo.

posted by LoriFLA 15 May | 21:48

Yep, mine was going to be lateness. Not just the "morning scramble" but the perennial troubles arising from "left 15 minutes later than I should've" or "Oh, that meeting is in 10 minutes, meaning I can screw around for the next 8 minutes"...it's obnoxious. Lateness is uncool, preventable, and selfish, and I just need to stop.

I suspect there's an ADHD aspect to this problem - hyperfocusing on the present, being unrealistic about how much time prepping things takes, not choosing to prep things because it's less appealing than whatever else I could be doing.

posted by Miko 15 May | 21:56

I stay up late reading the same websites over and over even though nothing is being updated and it's clear everyone else has gone to bed.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 May | 21:58

Yup, TPS and I are sisters in that regard.

posted by gaspode 15 May | 22:05

See, here I am again. I AM LEAVING NOW FOR REAL FOR REAL FOR REAL.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 May | 22:16

GAH NO THIS TIME FOR REAL

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 May | 22:19

Last time FOR REAL.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 May | 22:28

Weren't you supposed to be getting offline at like, 10.30 or something, TPS?

posted by gaspode 15 May | 22:30

Doing the same thing over again and expecting the results to be different. This couldn't be more true.

You left too soon, TPS :)

posted by msali 15 May | 22:32

YES I WAS, GASPODE

IT'S SIMPLY UNPOSSIBLE

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 15 May | 22:57

Go to bed, you.

posted by mudpuppie 15 May | 23:34

I assume that everyone is smarter than I am. I instinctively defer to people whom I KNOW JUST GOT HERE AND HAVE NO CLUE instead of raising reasonable caveats. I'm, like, the Softest Touch Ever. I genuinely think that other people are operating from a position of probity & respect, and so I get painfully fucked, because I prefer to do business personally than ligatorilly. Is that a word? It is now.

posted by BitterOldPunk 16 May | 02:13

Every Friday I forget to put the trash out, get in the car to go to work, drive up the street and see everyone else's trash out, and turn around to go put mine out, and end up late for work.

I've also been forgetting for the last three months to get my driver's license renewed, but I don't think that's being dumb so much as psychological avoidance -- Isn't it bad enough I have to have another birthday? I gotta fill out forms, wait in line, and have my picture taken TOO?

posted by JanetLand 16 May | 05:45

I have to agree with everyone in this thread. I do all of these.

posted by Obscure Reference 16 May | 08:20

I wake up.
Bad idea, that.

posted by Thorzdad 16 May | 08:22

Thinking that my parents are eventually going to react in the way I want them to react to things.
No, pops, the correct response to 'yay I got 4 articles published' is not 'well, how many more do you have that you're working on?'

posted by sperose 16 May | 09:01

Eat something surgary-carby during the day. Get the subsequent afternoon slump.

posted by danf 16 May | 10:11

I keep assuming that other people don't have any problems, I'm the only one who does.

posted by Melismata 16 May | 10:13

Drinking liquids before bedtime. When the day's water pills finally rinse themselves out, I get very thirsty, and I drink some water or juice. However, anything I drink between then and bedtime will revisit it me at around 5 am, waking me up.

posted by Ardiril 16 May | 10:32

I overextend myself physically. Even if I weren't otherwise sick, my back is really bad and I can only so do much before it's Done. But there is so, so, so much that I want to do! All of the time! So I let myself do "just five more minutes" and then suffer for days, sometimes weeks, for that "five more minutes."

But there's so much to do! All of the time! And it's so hard to make myself go rest when I don't feel physically stressed yet.

posted by galadriel 16 May | 11:19

I do what TPS does too.

I also drink coffee at night (but only on a day when I don't need to be up for work at 5.30am), knowing full well it'll keep me awake into the wee small hours. I bought my first ever decaff coffee last week to try to avoid the 3am bedtime.

I don't have a morning scramble, though, because I make sure I have everything ready the night before. I only do this because years of being in a rush and forgetting things finally taught me that it's easier to get things ready in advance.

posted by Senyar 16 May | 12:43

I read the clock wrong. I often show up at the reference desk or at someone's desk for lunch an hour early. Embarrassing, annoying, yet my brain refuses to get with the program.

posted by initapplette 16 May | 13:48

I was going to write something about procrastinating, but maybe I'll get around to it later.

posted by willpie 16 May | 13:51

I post comments on internet forums.

posted by Hugh Janus 16 May | 16:59

Guilty of lateness, here.

posted by chewatadistance 16 May | 18:42

Getting out of bed?

TPS, Miko, Bitter OP, I'm with you. I must keep clicking around instead of going to bed, cause Someone Might Be Wrong on The Internets. I don't prep the coffeepot/breakfast/clothes at night, and then it's all running around. And I, too, don't give myself credit, and let not-so-bright people hold sway, when I Know Better.

I'm okay on the laundry, because I wear a uniform of sorts, so I just pick 1 from column A, 1 from column B, and I'm dressed. Some mornings I feel lively, and apply a little style, but if not, I am unconcerned, and decent enough.

You people give me hope, really, you do. Thank you.

posted by theora55 16 May | 20:00

I keep getting to the end of the week and then staying up ridiculously late on Friday night because I feel like I have a whole two days to sleep in. And then I wake up only an hour later than usual on Saturday morning, and feel terrible for most of the day. But then on Sunday morning I manage to sleep in *two* hours later than usual, and spend much of the day feeling good but rather groggy from sleeping so late. And then of course on Monday morning, my alarm seems to go off oh so ridiculously early.

I mean it's not like my weekend gets any longer or better from staying up Friday night, it just moves the waking hours around a bit, so why do I do that?

posted by FishBike 16 May | 20:10

STILL LIVING THE DREAM

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 16 May | 22:13

I read comments on online newspaper articles. Why? Why do I do that?

posted by occhiblu 16 May | 23:15

Hi. My name is Ardiril, and I read Metafilter threads.

posted by Ardiril 17 May | 00:51

I drink a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke every day. I know it's bad for me, but I love Diet Coke. When I go without I am irritable and tired. Yeah I know, it's a caffeine issue. But still...

posted by Splunge 17 May | 04:27

When I have A Big Deal event early, I get up insanely early... so early that I decide "Oh, you have plenty of time!" And I sit around doing nothing ---- drinking a slow cup of coffee, reading, luxuriating in a bath --- until I have just a few minutes. Then I spend those few minutes in a tearing rush, cursing at myself.

I habitually sit cross-legged, even on the sofa, even though it's awful for my back and my joints. I'm doing it right now. I know my hips will make a terrible deep cracking pop when I stand up, but I'm doing it anyway.

I stay up late, fall asleep curled in a humped-up crouch on the futon, and then stumble my way to bed half-asleep on cramped legs. Why don't I just Go. To. Bed. the first time I doze off?

posted by Elsa 17 May | 09:33

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