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Procrastination

15:14 / 19.02.02

Just broke up with my girlfriend of almost two years. Doing fine.. except I can't get anything done. Dropping school, not doing the stuff I've promised other people I'd do.. just reading Barbelith. Not even posting, just reading.

How do I deal with this? How can I get out of the habit of sleeping til' noon and not getting anything done? Who can screw my head on straight?

Help?

15:20 / 19.02.02

Bio, the only thing that can truly help is time. There's not really anything to say- a massive void in your life has opened and you need to put other things in it's place. Until you do that you'll be ain a state of limbo. It's going to take time, but you'll definetely get there. Just don't try and push anything. If you don't feel like doing anything don't - in a couple of weeks you'll be active again. Good luck.

[ 19-02-2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]

15:28 / 19.02.02

But "not doing things I don't feel like doing" simply isn't an option. Everything not done will pile up, and then I certainly won't get anything done, ever, just out of fear of touching the huge piles of "things to do".

Also, I think my subconcious is doing sabotage agains me. I've started forgetting my diary with lists of things to do, I've started forgetting to charge my mobile, so people can't call me.. And it just makes me feel stupid. Ridiculous. "Why shouldn't I do the things I should do?", I think, and end up doing nothing, anyway. It's been going on for a week, now.

Tricks to fool myself into being active, anyone?

15:36 / 19.02.02

well, everything that you let fall by the wayside is only tripping you up, letting you fall deeper into the trap! RUN AWAY!

just stop. remove all of the distractions - writing forlorn love letters? stop it. sighing over vacation pictures? stop it. playing on barbelith when you should be working? stop it. you are only serving to dig yourself into a deep depression pit - buckling down to really work on putting your life back in place not only keeps you too busy to pine, but also helps remove the stress thats frazzling you

15:53 / 19.02.02

I say, sulk away. You can't just expect to start putting your life back together right away. You need a few weeks during which you lock yourself in the dark room and listen to the Smiths over and over, and drink too much, and constantly pick up the phone to ask her questions then slam the phone back down before you dial the number.

Only after you get the sulk out of your system, can you get better.

(oh, and make sure you don't try any of that remaining friends business. otherwise you'll still be gloomy two years from now.)

at least that's what I think.

16:20 / 19.02.02

I second that motion, Gridley. If you try and push it all away and ignore it will just come back to haunt you later. Best to get it all out of your system and start working on things once you have the emotional capability to do so.

17:16 / 19.02.02

no, no - I disagree. digging yourself deeper doesnt help anything, only makes things worse. ignoring the essential minutae of life only serves to deepen your losses and pile on the stress. that pile of paperwork getting any smaller? when you get back to it, its going to be twice as much of a bitch. the added cost and time of re-taking a class you failed because you couldnt be arsed to do your work or show up? fah. and the always fun moment you run into your ex at the store with her NEW love and you look (and smell) like a pile of horseshit because you didnt bother to bathe for the past 2 days.

nope, nope, doesnt solve anything at all.

you should definitely give yourself a break, if you feel you need one and you can manage to fit one in. but life goes on - with or without you

17:43 / 19.02.02

You're operating at 1/2 speed, BioDynamo, because you're shocked. That'll change but not right away. Sooner than you think though.

Your subconscious is limiting your stresses until you're feeling less wounded. Just let your conscious mind do it instead. Be ruthless and deal with priorities and stuff the rest of it.

When you're feeling weak and vulnerable, you can't be "energetic". But you can keep it all ticking over, if you keep perspective, until you're more like your biodynamic old self once more.

Just focus on the essentials and leave the rest. Most of it is much less important than you think it is, when you're in a mood to punish yourself for not having the perfect life that no one can ever have.

College is an essential but, if it's all getting too much, go talk to your Director of Studies, or a counsellor, or your friends. Offload the shit every chance you get until you've got your energy levels back where they should be.

Eating, drinking, getting some fresh air in your lungs and human interaction of some sort are the real essentials. Take care.

19:01 / 19.02.02

quote:Originally posted by BioDynamo:
Tricks to fool myself into being active, anyone?

Take a cartel full of coke, better still cheap man's marching powder- the evil speed ...

[ 19-02-2002: Message edited by: Sauron ]

19:24 / 19.02.02

Long, solitary walks and nightly sit ups seemed to help me. At one point, I was over 100 a night (not in sets, mind you, one long session).
Felt miserable, but had a flat stomach. And it gave me something to focus on.

That's the real key - something slightly obsessive, yet healthy, you can invest yourself in. Fishing. Surfing. Weightlifting. Whatever.

19:27 / 19.02.02

Good point Grant. Ignore my crass retort. I think the best way to make yourself feel better is to feel better.

09:20 / 20.02.02

Have an irresponsible rebound relationship. Pass it on, man...

09:20 / 20.02.02

The drugs-suggestions I'll happily pass on. Doesn't seem a good idea right now.

However, Ganesh's idea of "passing it on" made me smile. In a nice way, not nasty and evil. As a theoretical idea it would be nice..

09:20 / 20.02.02

i broke up with my g/f of two years about five months ago: i did the opposite to what you're doing - i was busy busy busy and it was helpful to a certain extent but i think the best thing i could've done was really grieve for a while. you cannot expect to just walk away from this. perhaps not charging your phone means you don't want to talk to people. that's okay, i think. but as someone else said, go onto autopilot and get the essentials done. it is such a cliche but time does heal, and how you're feeling now will not last forever.

am sending hugs your way. look after yourself.

19:46 / 20.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ganesh v4.2:
Have an irresponsible rebound relationship. Pass it on, man...

The classic "Find some chick that looks like her, nail her & then dump her bitch ass" approach from "Say Anything", eh? How mature.

As someone who's been unemployed for over 3 months now, I certainly can realte to putting things off. It's weird how things are inverse like that: the more time you have to do something, the least amount of things will be accomplished. It sounds like a bunch of crap, but making lists does help. And to keep yourself from getting discouraged, make sure you don't make your lists too long, but do make sure you finish at least 2 things on the list each day.

20:19 / 20.02.02

Margin Walker:
quote:make sure you don't make your lists too long, but do make sure you finish at least 2 things on the list each day.

There was an Italian theorist (economist, I think) called Vilfredo Pareto who came up with a law that if you make a "to do" list, research shows that the first 1/5 of the list will constitute 4/5 of the possible accomplishment for the day in question.

I rely on that frequently: list ten things you simply must get done today, do two of them, then you're ready to spend the rest of the day drinking Stella Artois and listening to your favoiurite seismic tunes.

20:23 / 20.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Margin Walker:
The classic "Find some chick that looks like her, nail her & then dump her bitch ass" approach from "Say Anything", eh? How mature.

Um...

"Say Anything"?

10:55 / 05.01.03

Make urself get up in the morning. And go swimming. All day.

17:21 / 21.02.08

Thought I'd dig up this corpse instead of doing actual work.

The thing is, I have two incredibly important deadlines looming. Two enormously long lab reports need to be written along with an essay on Pollution and Weather in Mexico City. The materials I need to start are in my bag, but my bag is under the table. I could bend down to pick it up, but instead I've spent the past forty-five minutes filling in random surveys and browsing the den of obsession that is Outpost Gallifrey's forum.

I went home earlier today for a break, which instead of lasting twenty minutes, lasted two hours, of me drawing shitty pictures of an imaginary super-villain's citadel. I don't need to do these things. I have much more important things to do than draw The Den of Extreme Fascism, but why does the stupid part of my brain take over and force me to do stuff that doesn't even approach being productive?

*

18:55 / 21.02.08

I just started breaking the ice on my own extremely important looming thesis deadlines.

I moved my computer into a different room, sat down at it, disabled teh interweb, and set my computer to announce the time on the half-hour. I take a break of not less than two minutes every half-hour, but not more than five minutes. Even and especially if that means stopping in mid-sentence, because then I have a jumpstart when I begin again. I provide myself with food, drink, especially tea, and other comfort necessities, and then I start writing.

The first thing I wrote was a paragraph about why I didn't want to start working, how I didn't know what to say about the topic, and how I wished I didn't have to do any research but could just expound on my own brilliant ideas without tying them to anything. Least of all a particular segment of material, which I hated covering. Once I'd gotten myself writing about why I hated covering it, it was an easy transition to academic writing (so long as I watched my tendency to be unnecessarily contentious). And I wrote 4 usable pages in two hours, which is about average for me on a normal writing day and is much, much better than my recently previous pace of 0 pages in 12 hours.

And now that mercury is out of retrograde, and there was just that lunar eclipse with something about virgo, clearly the stars are right for me to get my work done!

I'm kidding on the... well, not quite on the square, more like on the parallelogram. If I can read something into the current astrology or flight of birds or jet contrails that makes it sound like it's my fate and I can hardly help but be productive, I can short circuit all that whining about how I can't get anything done. Obviously, I can get things done... the stars say so. Is there anything you can use as a magic feather? Biorhythms, herbal medicine, a particular kind of music?

Some productivity help for me: I use Freeverse's Think sometimes, which is a very simple little gadget that covers your other applications with a black screen so you can focus on the one you're using to work. Although I've kind of stopped using this one since I use OS 10.5 now with Spaces. That helps because the timewasting programs stay out of sight.