Dear Group, I don't know about you but every morning when I get up I dread all of the things that need to be done around the house, my office, my computer, etc., and frankly I'm tired of feeling defeated from morning to night. So much needs to be done that by the end of the day, I end up by doing nothing. So for the past few days I've tried out a new system that I made up. At night when I go to bed, I pick out ONE simple chore that needs to be done the next day and that's the only promise I make. Day before yesterday I did my ONE chore-the laundry. Yesterday, I made a pot of soup and today I went to the post office to buy one cent stamps to go with my leftover roll of 33 cent ones. Tomorrow? Well, my ONE chore is to get my checkbook out and pay up the stack of bills that have been collecting dust on my desk. After all, now that I have the stamps, I have no excuse for not mailing them out. And I know darn well that it won't take me even a half an hour and once that's done, I can do whatever I damned well feel like doing. But do you know what? I've noticed that after I get that ONE chore out of the way I tend to keep on going and doing one more chore and one more chore without a second thought. And when I go to bed at night I feel so good about myself thinking about ALL of the things that I accomplished during the day. I'm certain that the system I just invented is based on some Aesop fable or biblical admonition or some old wise saying-or maybe based on what my Mother used to tell me, "As soon as you straighten out your room you can go out and play." But until you try it yourself and tell yourself that as soon as you do that ONE chore you can play the rest of the day, you don't realize how free you feel to do all sorts of other things that you've been putting off. So tonight when I go to bed I'll be proud of myself for making the effort to go to the post office and I'll also be proud of myself for all of the OTHER good things I accomplished today without a second thought. Let's see, I think for Wednesday my ONE chore will be to disassemble my bare artificial Christmas tree, pack it up and put it away. Oh won't that be nice? vee