Personal Best: I have subscribed to the way of the JFDI

Let me tell you about about the JFDI code. No, it’s not a mis-typed reference to Star Wars (and a potential UK religion according to the 2011 census) but a little acronym for something that I’m becoming more and more familiar and content with.

I’m a Pisces, and along with all the other star signs this has nothing to do with the fact that I am – or, rather, was – something of a putter-offer-er. I was even late in submitting this column! But I have been transformed completely in the last 15 months to a Just-Fucking-Do-It-er.

You may be aware that I’m on my way to a half-century and have been working through a ‘50 things to do before 50’ list that I wrote in January 2023 to give myself some time to complete by mid-March this year (St Patrick’s Day, in fact). I’ve had peaks and troughs of motivation and interest and, inevitably, my attention drifts into other things that are more – wait, look, a squirrel!

Anyway, life tends to get in the way of well-laid plans. But I’m becoming more clinical: rather than not executing a lot of half-baked, not-thought-through plans, I’m taking on fewer but bigger projects and seeing them all through. It is line one of the JFDI book.

Those things that you want to do but get waylaid from, those things that you should do but find an excuse not to, and those things that you must do but somehow lose priority to making a picture from old stamps. I’m sure we’re all guilty of it. I, however, have had enough. It’s time to get shit done – and, yes, once again I’m sure it is because I can hear a clock ticking in the back of my head.

On my list were lots of small tasks, some bigger travel boxes to tick, some culture to consume, and one goddam giant of a thing: to have the extension we’ve talked about for 10 years finally built and – wait for it – for me to lay a reclaimed parquet floor as part of the new room.

One of the JFDI tenets is that you need to use the force to help you assume that you can do anything that you turn your mind to. Which, of course, you can. It just takes a bit more time. Or, in this case, a lot of time.

Parquet, if you don’t know is the format of flooring where blocks of wood are glued onto the floor often in a herringbone fashion. Remember where you had PE indoors as a kid? That. It takes ages, and everything moves and you get gaps, and even though I’m no professional I decided to give it a go in this journey of JFDI.

We had a conservatory on the back of our house that was boiling in summer and freezing at all other times (and I live in the UK where summer runs from the 1st of August all the way up to the 2nd). It was a useless space and so became an unsightly dumping ground. In October last year we had builders start demolishing it in order to turn it into a brick-walled, roofed room that we can spread out into and make actual, practical use of.

The building work was completed in February and I’ve spent two weeks placing a parquet floor, panel by panel, over 32 square metres of new space. And whilst it has been backbreaking, quite tedious and very smelly, I’m thrilled with how it looks. I even received the best praise of all in that I’m not in one bit of trouble with my wife. (Well, not in connection with this at least.)

Procrastination gets more and more frustrating as you get older and I think you eventually come to terms with the fact that there is no one else to blame if it doesn’t happen so you’ve just got to get on and do it. I am applying this to lots of things and I have always been pretty productive, I’ve just lost patience for things not happening and am much more delivery-focused than I have ever been before. I just can’t be arsed with not being arsed any more, and it is really rewarding.

The house is bigger, brighter, airier, and we’ve got a floor that we love and that I’ll tell everyone about. Of course over time, my arm-waving at the floor will subtly move to incorporate the whole room as my own work. Maybe before 60 I’ll stop trying to blag things. I might have a new list to write up before then.

Are you struggling to get things done? Learn to manage your time and focus on the things you love from our masterclass on time management.