Sometimes, doing something really dull pays off in $$$

My husband has been pestering me to do my online health assessment with our medical insurance. This just sounds so, so dull, so time-consuming, and you know how these online things are, sometimes the page loads fine, other times everything freezes up, and you have to start all over. So, I've been dragging my heels on this one. I've got loads of other more interesting projects on my list that'll save us some money. But this one would save us quite a chunk on our annual insurance costs.

After procrastinating for many weeks, this morning, I procrastinated a bit more -- did some painting, got a haircut, cleaned up the kitchen, had an extra cup of coffee -- yep, I was procrastinating big time! Then, finally, I grabbed a handful of crackers (my bribe) and sat down with the computer and went online.

Things I'd rather do than this health assessment

take a walk on the beach, well, duh, who wouldn't rather do that?

play in the garden and dance with the flower fairies

pick fruit,  any kind of fruit

bake cookies

do a jig saw with my kids

even paint the chair that goes with the garden bench

Okay, so I've got the computer in front of me. It took me almost 15 minutes to even get to the health points section, as it had been so long, I could not, for the life of me, remember my user id or my password. I got locked out at one point, due to too many attempts to log in. About to give up and move on to something else, I told myself I'd stick with it for another 5 minutes. And, yes! I finally got myself unlocked, and logged in.

This kind of boring work is difficult for me to do. I'm not terribly self-disciplined. If I can't find some fun in a task, it's very hard to propel myself forward. So, I grabbed another handful of crackers (more bribe), and thought about what we could do with the $500 we'd save by my doing my half of the health points deal. Our marriage is a joint partnership, after all. And I'd be peeved to no end, if my husband would not help me to save some money. So, that thought helped to motivate me. And I kept thinking about fun stuff $500 would buy. Extra fun on our vacation this winter, dinners out, spending sprees of all kinds. Yes, I bribe myself with the thought of pleasures to come, to get myself to do dull work.

And all this bribing (in my mind, as well as with those crackers) worked. I filled out the online forms. It took about an hour (slow loading pages online are frustrating aren't they?). But my part will have helped us to save a lot of money on our insurance. I will still have to go back and add info over the course of the next month, but I've committed myself to doing this now.

This sort of task can be difficult to motivate oneself towards. How about you? Is there something you've done lately, that you really didn't want to do, but you knew it would save you some money, and you just made yourself do it anyways?