Boyfriend and I are trying a gimmick. I love gimmicks and I invariably think they are going to work. So of course I already know this one is about to totally revolutionize my world! (Man, that is sadly saracasm-less.)

Anyway, I’ve been trying to make my life work. The new job that seems to have a policy against midday naps, the boyfriend who lives inconveniently far away, the books that refuse to write themselves…it’s tough out there.

But this one is so simple! It has to work! And I shall win it!

Here it is: It’s called the Seinfeld Method or Chain Method and it’s the approach Jerry Seinfeld used to stop procrastinating.

1. Assess your life and decide how much time you can spend a day without completely jacking with your social life/free time/work, etc. One hour seems to be the norm.

2. Choose 3 tasks that you would like to make time for. You’ll spend about 20 minutes on each.

3. Print out a monthly calendar and get a marker.

4. Every day you complete all three tasks on your list, you get to mark the day with a big fat X. The goal is to never break the chain. You accrue time off like you would any other job, etc.

5. You have to decide what will be sufficient to earn the X. In other words, it’s not necessarily based on time and supposedly works better if you base it on task and not time and allow things to even out to about an hour on any given day. For instance, if you choose cleaning, maybe picking up 10 stray items will be enough to get you a check.

6. Keep the items broad so you can fit in one needs to go in that day. For example, choose “Chores” over cleaning because maybe you need to pay bills, write thank you notes, whatever and that should count.

So my schedule is going to be:

5 days/week

1 hour per day

Tasks: Chores, workout, reading/writing

Wish me luck and for a more detailed description of the method check the link above!