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I am the Great Procrastinator

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17:46 / 01.12.02

Why oh why oh why can't I just sit down and CONCENTRATE and get on with it?

So I have this paper to write, and though the deadline is officially 5pm on Friday, my supervisor asked me to try and get him something by the same time tomorrow. I've read quite a lot of sources for it (perhaps not as many as I should have, but I have had a lot going on lately and, er, haven't been able to concentrate properly) and I sort of have an idea about what I need to say, though I don't know whether I should go for a straight account or try to raise some of the methodological problems (Haven't quite worked exactly what those problems are yet, but there are always methodological problems).

So why is it that I have just spent the entire afternoon gawping at my computer, and have achieved absolutely sod all? Why am I typing this rather than doing what I am supposed to be doing? And what can I do about it?

Please, any ideas on how to get some rigour and focus back into my life would be greatly appreciated...

17:51 / 01.12.02

Eh...I'll reply later.

18:10 / 01.12.02

Heh. I have lots of work to do., but I don't want to do it. I have done bugger all this weekend. I am sabotageing myself. Why? My UCAS is in, and exams are over a month away. This is my new Jumping Up And Down And Not Having Anything To Do Space (OK, I do have stuff to do, but let's pretend, eh?)

I wish I didn't get to get away with doing so little in school. I'd be a rocking student if I did my work. As it is, I've blagged my way into giving Film Studies work in after the Christmas holidays, only doing part of the work for history and "reading the sources later" and, uh... sidetracking my English Language teacher with "Have you found my exam paper yet?" every time they look workily at me.

I'm a bad person.

18:16 / 01.12.02

It's weird how easy it is (and how much energy one takes up) finding good reasons to avoid work, even work you love doing. I'd never get any writing done if I wasn't so obsessive and had such low self-esteem (if I'm not writing then I'm worthless!), so maybe that's the answer - stop having any other kind of life....

18:39 / 01.12.02

Tell me about it. I've spent the weekend sat in front of this monitor trying to work out why a pparticular piece of code isn't working and what the solution is.

Scrub that. I should have spent the weekend etc. Instead, yesterday saw me trying to fix the problem for three minutes every hour, spaced out by 47 minutes of Internet/books/GameBoy foolishness. Today has been better, but only because the deadline is that much closer.

The reason, in my case at least, is that I keep on getting away with it. Every bit of work I do is left until the deadline is looming, but when I finally get around to doing it I'll concentrate for 48 hours non-stop, get into a zone and just plug away, before collapsing in an exhausted heap as soon as its handed in. Then I berate myself for it and come out with the usual "never again"s. I just think I work better this way (although, that said, I've nothing else to compare it to, having always worked this way).

Does it really matter if you're getting the results?

By the way, pin, good to see the form is in. Thought you were following my example for a while there.

The Return Of Rothkoid

20:23 / 01.12.02

Well, I haven't been able to concentrate either, lately. And I'm writing this from work which probably indicates something.

I don't know what to say to make you get on with it. Nothing will work but self-resolve, really. And you know you can get that. You just have to figure out how.

SIgh.

21:56 / 01.12.02

Concentration is something that takes time to return. You can't regain it instantly. I had a pretty crappy result in my exams last summer, and as such have not felt as geared up for work. Also, I've had lots of other things, notably the University newspaper, that have taken up a significant amount of brainpower if not time.

I had one of the worst nights of my life ever this term, where I stared at a book for an hour and a half, moved my eyes at the correct speed, turned pages at the correct speed, and an hour and a half later nothing had gone in. My reading hasn't been great this term, but that was notably dreadful. I think next term might be better; I'm slowly regaining focus with my dissertation and have ideas on how to make it work, but I need the holiday-break first.

Essentially, stop trying to concentrate for so long; every time you lose focus, snap out of it, take a breath, try again. And set aside time every so often for thinking all the things you think when you're procrastinating. It might have to be every fifteen minutes, but compartmentalising helps. It's helping me - finally, in the last week of term, i'm getting somewhere. The fact I'm now solely working on my dissertation, and not just Tragedy with a less than stellar supervisor, is very helpful.

Procrastus is my middle name, though. Other things that help: routine, healthy sleep patterns, eating well. But I do know what you mean. This term I feel like I've become super-stupid - I want a tshirt saying Barbelith Ate My Brain on it. A summer of the internet and I now skimread everything. Depressing. I'm going to try and get out of it, and am close to going to see a work-counsellor. Hope I've been of some help though, because it's a subject dear to my heart that fills me with dread as well... only two more terms of university left ever, and I'd like to succeed at the end of it all.

03:16 / 02.12.02

I went through a horrible bit of this this week. Essay due Thurs and 2 exams (Wed and Thurs), but I spent hours moping around, playing Civilization 3, reading Barbelith, etc. etc.

Unfortunately my only cure was to wake up this morning magically full of energy and motivation. Is the time of year/change of season a good enough excuse? Coffee or Tea helps sometimes, just having something there to drink and nurse for hours.

Dances with Gophers

10:20 / 02.12.02

Mmmmm.... Civilization 3! Well bang goes another weekend!

10:26 / 02.12.02

It's a lot easier to work with womething than with nothing, so you need to get any old crap onto the screen before you can get stuck in. I suggest bargaining with yourself, ie telling yourself that if you can just sketch in the rough points you think you might want to make, then you can go off and skive for as long as you want. Making a little start like that is easy, thus not daunting, thus easy to get yourself to do, then later when you're skiving and contemplating actually sitting down and writing proper stuff, you're not as frozen because you know that the outline's there and all you have to do is read over it and add a few bits in. It's all kind of a chain reaction of convincing yourself that you only have a little job to do. It's often the unmanageability of a large job that freezes the motivation circuits.

10:27 / 02.12.02

I'm patently not going to get this done today. Bugger.

If you need something like Civilisation to procrastinate with you just haven't had enough practice... we zen masters of procrastination can do it with a blank screen...

11:17 / 02.12.02

Given the about of stuff I've got to do by Dec 14th, I should be working 14 hour days, but.. y'know, 14 minute days is closer to the mark, partly due to inability to get up before 11:30, partly cos I waste all day doing crap like this.. isn't it always the way..

15:08 / 04.12.02

It's easy to pretend your working on something. If there's no one to call you on it, you'll meet some sort of deadline, personal or otherwise, and probably be appalled at your behaviour. That's the way it goes with me - over and over.

good luck, procrastination doesnt get solved by thinking about it unless you think rather quick and clearly.

15:12 / 04.12.02

I'm just about ready to start on my driftwood art, and there's one, big thing stopping me from doing it - fear of failure. Basically, I'm a crap artist, I have loads of ideas, but I know of loads of people who could do this better than me. I have two beautiful pieces of boat wreck that have been scrubbed over the course of the last few weeks. Can I hope to make them any better by painting on them? I need to convince myself that it won't be the end of the world if I mess it up, and better to have tried than not.

Tryphena Absent

23:21 / 04.12.02

Tonight I watched 'Primal Fear' on BBC1 instead of doing something productive. I'm putting it all down to the fact that I haven't been out for the night (except to see Harry Potter) for eight days. So that's two forms of procrastination right there.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

23:21 / 04.12.02

Newsflash: You will fuck up. You will produce bits and pieces which are just so irredeemably crap you'll want to bin 'em. And it doesn't matter! That's how you learn how to do good stuff-- you do bad stuff, then slightly less bad stuff, and so on.

If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing badly.

23:23 / 04.12.02

Not when you never seem to learn, though.

09:14 / 05.12.02

Just thinking of this from a magickish point of view (god, I'm boring: whatever it is, I'll manage to drag Crowley and Chaospheres in there somewhere) - just wondered if anyone has any ideas on how to beat procrastination? Or change things around so it's not an issue - my first thoughts would be NLP type stuff.

Oviously looking at Barbelith every 10 mininutes is NOT procrastination with regard to the ominous looking pile of work on my desk. No, no, no.

11:09 / 05.12.02

This magic thing of impulsiveladhelped me

12:26 / 05.12.02

shortfatdyke:
"I have two beautiful pieces of boat wreck that have been scrubbed over the course of the last few weeks. Can I hope to make them any better by painting on them?"

Probably not, because wood is innately lovely and Rembrandt couldn't make it better. But that's not the point - you're using the wood, not vice versa. The f***ers are working for you now! And, whilst drift wood isn't that common, it's not so rare that every example need be preserved untouched.

12:33 / 05.12.02

Am really pissing myself off now. Can't think at all - fuzzy brain. Perhaps I am coming down with a cold - must go to chemist and buy pastilles... or to the corner shop for some honey for that servitor whatsit... maybe I should try and sleep it off... maybe a nice walk would clear my head... or should I read something unrelated to calm down a bit?

Obviously actually sitting down and making a concerted effort to write the fucking thing would be absurd. I need a good kicking.

12:33 / 05.12.02

Oh, sorry, thanks for the suggestions, everyone - I'm just peevish, ignore me...

The Return Of Rothkoid

13:13 / 05.12.02

A good booting, eh?

I think figgy rolls would be a better incentive. Or Jaffas. I won't send you any if you don't do it...

13:18 / 05.12.02

Procrastination is an unavoidable and essential part of the writing process. I had the whole day today clear to work on my chapter, and I've never posted so much on barbelith in such a short time in my life, i don't think. Each one of us has a different "fruitless-staring/minesweeper-playing": production ratio, and we must learn to accept that ratio. Somehow, the work will be done, but attempts to rationalize the process into a sleeker, more efficient procedure will never work.

So, stare fruitlessly, go and buy some pastilles, and trust in the fact that work is being done at some level of your unconscious. (But don't trust in it too much, obviously, because however much work gets done there you still have to get the bugger down on paper. So also write lots of crap, because then at least you'll have something to look at and you can think "Doh! I can do better than that!" and take heart.)

Goodness Gracious Meme

13:35 / 05.12.02

That last piece of advice is a really good one. Just write however many words you need, quickly, no matter how bad you think it is.

That way you've at least got something to work from, it's often alot easier to 'edit' (even if that editing process involves erasing 99% of the words you've written and replacing them with proper writing....somehow I always find writing easier if I've got 5000 words to chop away first) , and hopefully you'll be so disgusted with what you've written, it'll make you aware of how much better you can do , which will hopefully kick your butt into action...

15:06 / 05.12.02

Speaking of which, I wrote 2000 words this morning.

Rock.

16:00 / 05.12.02

And I'm just about to finish tying a group report together.

Mint.

16:02 / 05.12.02

I hate you both. No progress. Gone beyond procrastination into a state of blank boggling, marvellous.

I did this spouting whinge about my incompetence last time I had a paper as well, didn't I? I'll try not to make a habit of it...

16:15 / 05.12.02

Yes, but did you get the last paper in on time? This might be just the way you work - I seem to recall flat sharing with a student who did much the same thing and could only get to grips with essays etc the night before the deadline. With yours truly supplying endless cups of coffee.

16:24 / 05.12.02

This post is actually number three on this thread but, you know, kept meaning to...

We became enthused, after a visit to Ikea, with the thought of finally doing something with the shit kitchen in our flat and, one weekend, ripped out the shabby old units, threw out the grimy cooker, tore down the wallpaper.

Then we ate takeaway pizza for a year because of procrastination sickness. Finally got round to replacing the cooker and storage cupboards once my Lord and Master had moved to London. Got the papering and painting done a few weeks before I too moved out.

My memory of university, K-CC, was of sitting up all night and posting hurriedly completed coursework under people's doors at 7a.m. When push came to shove, I could always pull the "my parents have found out I'm gay and thrown me out, can I have an extension please" routine. Shameful but it always worked.

19:06 / 05.12.02

Heh. I have a friend who basically always did what you're doing, Kit-Cat. Procrastinate, followed by a freak-out about procrastination, followed by (eventually) doing the darned thing. Just for the record she had the highest G.P.A. and best academic record, most honors of anyone I know from my university so you're not in bad company.

I think sometimes you just need a break. Maybe that's you right now. But I think you'll get it together in time. Me, I used to give myself "rewards" for every piece of work I completed. Even if the reward was "If I finish my Calculus homework I can read my English homework." Don't know if that would work for you.

Anyway good luck sweetie.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

19:16 / 05.12.02

Nearly three years ago, I took a job that was "7 nights on, 7 nights off". PURELY because it'd give me time to write the great HP Lovecraft biographical novel the world is missing. (Which, as if it needed saying, remains unwritten.)

I'm now over a year late writing music reviews for stuff I got as promos way back when.

Is it possible to hire someone to kick you up the arse every now and then?

The Return Of Rothkoid

21:31 / 05.12.02

Stoatie: that's only because you, like any wise Lovecraftian, know that should you set down the eldritch and blasphemous TRUE FACTS of the man's life, you'll get Shoggothed.

22:52 / 05.12.02

Yes, but did you get the last paper in on time? This might be just the way you work

Important point. BIG important point. It's what I was saying earlier about getting the results - as long as that's happening, it doesn't really matter how long you leave the work before starting on it. My best stuff always comes in the two days before hand-in, and I'm totally aware of that fact. It doesn't stop me from feeling like a knob in the two weeks beforehand or being absolutely exhausted by the end of it, but it does tend to lead to generally high marks. If it's working for you, there's no need to worry about it.

The other trick is the old 'notepad by your side at all times'. Comes in mighty handy if you're one of those people who gets sudden flashes or spends a lot more time thinking about the writing than you do actually doing it.

Anyway, don't hate me just yet. I've got another largish assessment due for Monday which hasn't been started yet. That one may well have been put off a little too long, but we'll see.

When's yours got to be in, KCC?

09:24 / 06.12.02

5pm today, and there's no chance I'm going to make it. I have told my supervisor that I've been having problems though, so I don't think it'll be a problem (and this is a preliminary to the big one, not an actual piece of work that counts), and I can probably sit down next week and work out what the problem is (it's not procrastination now, just basic terror because I can't work out what I'm trying to do with it, and how to do that in the space - think I'm probably trying to do too much, actually).

But still, misery, you know what I mean.

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