For as long as I can remember, I have been unable to get things done in a timely fashion. It takes me forever to replace broken appliances or pay overdue bills, and I am not much better about answering emails or returning phone calls. The optometrist’s office sits 50 yards from my office; I pass it 10 times a day. But I need a year to make an appointment and another six months before I order new glasses. Maybe I’m just lazy. Maybe the $10 reading glasses from CVS work just fine. What astonishes me is that I ever get anything done. I am a chronic list-maker, yet except for picking up milk and the dry cleaning, nothing ever seems to get checked off my list. I recently happened upon a notebook I kept in Paris in 1972, when I was 21. It consisted of hundreds of French words and phrases I wrote down to help me master the language. In the back was a list of things I intended to do with my life. These included learning German, Italian, and Spanish, reading Proust every night before bedtime, and going to Oktoberfest in Munich. It is now 46 years later and I haven’t done any of those things.