Lifehack: We all do it to some degree or another; put off for tomorrow what we know should be done today. Postpone the inevitable pain for the current moment of pleasure. But we know that even if we can manage to put it out of our minds for the present, it will eventually come around and bite us on the butt and disturb our external calm demeanor.
Monday, September 12, 2011
7 Symptoms of Procrastination and How to Fight Them
Lifehack: We all do it to some degree or another; put off for tomorrow what we know should be done today. Postpone the inevitable pain for the current moment of pleasure. But we know that even if we can manage to put it out of our minds for the present, it will eventually come around and bite us on the butt and disturb our external calm demeanor.
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The comment about a lack of vision is one I would not immediately think of like the other signs, but is well supported in this article and makes me reconsider procrastination in this sense. While the other excuses are ones I have heard many times before with procrastination, they are valid points to make about those who procrastinate. It's nice to see that this article attempts to give people help to those with this problems, instead of just pointing them out.
The article brings up a few good points, but nothing it says is particularly profound. That's not to say that the strategies aren't useful, they clearly are, but it's nothing that procrastinators couldn't figure out on their own... eventually. I think there is something to be said about the edge that procrastinating gives some people. Sure they might be less stressed if they were to take their tips, but then their final product might suck... I guess it's a trade off; more sleep or worse work. Meh.
Like most theatre students, I suffer from extreme procrastination. When I get home from rehearsal at midnight, I'm exhausted and don't want to sit down and write a paper or read another play. I think that this article makes some valid points, but most of them are known by most procrastinators. Everyone knows that if you become more efficient with your time, you'll get more work done, be able to sleep more, and not procrastinate as much. However, I think that most procrastinators in our generation have gotten used to writing a paper in one night or hurriedly finishing the homework five minutes before class. I agree with David P when he says that there is something to be said about the pressure of an intense time deadline. It forces people to be concise, to say what they want to say, and to not add too much fluff.
I agree with Cat, I procrastinated throughout my entire Undergrad life (sad I know), mainly because I knew that I would get the assignments done just in time! It is a sad fact and it would have been better for my mental state during the mad rush if we procrastinators just prepared and not started things the night before. In relation to the article, I think that it states the typical points mentioned when discussing procrastination and how to solve it. However there are two points which I agree and disagree with. The comment about the "fear of failure" is one that I completely agree with. This impacts your motivation to start an assignment, especially when you are unsure of how or where to even begin. The point that I disagree with or maybe not disagree but would add to is the one about 'lack of organisation'. I think that you can have many schedules and have everything well planned out, however the problem, as we all know, comes with sticking to the schedules and following through with what you planned.
In addition to what previous comments have pointed out, I think a subtler form of procrastination that I tend to fall into is procrastinating on something fairly imminent by working on another project on which I have much more lead-time. Then, as I begin to panic about the project that is now near due, the other project, whose deadline also approaches, falls behind, and the vicious cycle continues. I’ve started to make very detailed lists of which things I have to do and in which order I have to do them. I’ve also had to severely limit (like ear plugs limit) the surrounding noise (music, people talking, cars going by outside) because I am easily distracted. Of course, all of these things are far from habit, and I certainly haven’t found any sort of panacea for procrastination other than obnoxiously strict self-discipline, but at least now I have strategies in place for when I start to founder.
I think these points are all standard procrastination excuses. The one that probably most relates to me is the vision. I procrastinate my comments because I don't have a clear sense of what kind of articles there are or thoughts I'll have on them. Reading this article did make me sit down and do my comments though, I was experiencing Lack of Vision, Tiredness, Fear, and Distractedness. But when it said, "have a clear vision of what needs to get done and the reason why" as I was deciding to do my comments tomorrow between classes, I changed my mind deciding that I'd rather give an extra 30min now than carry my laptop around all day tomorrow. The idea of considering the "reason why" is probably important to my changing my procrastination habits.
I agree with many of the above comments, the biggest reason for procrastination is a lack of vision. I find that many of the other listed reasons are ones we acknowledge as we do them, like being distracted by technology or fearing the process and end result. However, lack of vision is one we often do not take into consideration. Perhaps many of these suggestions I will take into account moving forward as to prevent more procrastination.
We often have procrastination articles on the green page, and this is no different from many others, however it's never a bad thing to be reminded to continually work on preventing procrastination. The most difficult part of completing work and writing papers is starting. I often fall victim to the vision problem as well. I will write an outline before I start working on a paper, but there is a big gap of procrastination before the outline and after the outline. I absolutely recommend writing an outline, but I know that I tend to avoid writing in order to "process". I'm never processing. The best way for me personally to process is to throw myself into the paper. Just start! That's the most difficult step and then you can just push through.
Interestingly enough, I find myself procrastinating by organizing. When I feel stressed about assignments, I often find myself glued to my Google Calendar, updating the events to remind myself of this upcoming assignments due date, and rearranging the homework slots on days where I can manage homework slots, etc. It’s my way of feeling as though I’m not procrastinating because it’s not useless or not related to academics. However, I know that I’m fooling myself and actually instead stressing myself out even more by over planning. I also appreciate how this article incorporates Fear as a reason for procrastination. I feel that it’s a contributing factor that is often looked over but plays a large role in the act of procrastination, particularly with me. Often I find myself putting off tasks or assignments because I fear that they will challenge me to a point of inferiority, or fear that I will get lost in thoughts, or even fear that I won’t be able to complete the task/assignment. This, of all procrastination techniques, is the one that speaks dear to my heart and one that I plan to conquer this school year.
I love the idea of at least starting on a project in order to break procrastination. I always find myself pissing around because I have not a clue what I am doing exactly on a particular project. For instance, writing a paper, if I bring myself to developing a thesis I at least know what my argument is and how it will be streamlined. Rather then going from there to writing the paper I write all of my topic sentences, or supporting arguments. Then I continue on from my paper adding the sentence leveling one layer at a time. That way whenever I get sidetracked or distracted it is easy to figure out where I am or what I am writing about. All this to say, if I at least have a little started on each portion of the project it is more likely that I will stay on task.
I definitely agree with everyone else that none of these statements about procrastination are particularily profound, but I think that we often forget about the causes of our procrastination, and being reminded of what may be causing it can help. I think that a lot of people forget that fear can play a large role in procrastination, I know that it often hurts me when I'm trying to get work done.
Lack of organization is also a big one. I am constantly trying to find the best way to be organized and plan my time. When I have a lot of work to get done, I like to figure out my entire schedule, and decide exactly when I am going to get each project done. I also set deadlines for myself that are 2 days earlier than the project is actually due.
I think the smartest advice from this article is the last point about breaking up a task into its smallest pieces, then doing those. Often a task can feel insurmountable because it is too big, but when broken down into tiny tasks that each only take a short amount of time, much more can be accomplished than previously thought. My old calculus teacher used to put a tough equation on the board then ask us how to eat an elephant. After much debate about how one would eat an elephant, the answer was as simple as one bite at a time. Handling each large task one bite at a time can be the best way to getting it done.
i too agree with everyone who has made comments thus far. i think there is another aspect to this. there is a completely different skill set used when procrastinating then there is when planning because of that you have to go about a project in a completely different way.
Like most other people I agree that while the topic of the article is a good one for discussion, the article itself wasn't as deep as I might have liked to see.
The one that stood out to me was the one about fear being a reason to procrastinate. I know I struggle with that myself - my desire to do something perfectly makes me over think and over plan at the beginning of a project until I usually don't actually have time to execute the project itself and the whole thing ends up as a rushed mess.
In my opinion, the reason a lot of us fear failure so much and procrastinate or freeze up when we face the potential to fail is that, in recent years, failure has become this unacceptable thing. I feel like our culture today is so busy pushing us to be the best at everything so we can move on to that next step that we often aren't allowed to fail. You have to get the high gpa in high school to get into the good college to get high marks there in order to get a good job afterward or your life will never amount to anything!!! Cue pressure and hyperventilation.
Then parents fear their child not being successful so much that you hear these crazy stories about teachers being sued for giving students bad grades, even if they've earned them. I think as a culture, our generation hasn't really learned how to fail and then move past it. We've never learned how to learn from our mistakes because we're not really allowed to make them, or if we do, there are often helicopter parents waiting by the sideline to swoop in, fix everything, and make sure everyone gets a trophy. I think a little failure might actually be good for some of us, myself included, to make us more rounded human beings because once we get out in the real world, things aren't always going to work out, and we need to be able to deal with that when it happens.
One of the best tips about procrastination is to break down what you have to do. If you have twenty things to do by the next day, you may feel overwhelmed. But really you only have one thing to do. And when that's done then you have another thing to do...and so on. If you focus on just one thing instead of the fact that you have twenty things to do, it makes it easier to get all of your work done.
I would definitely have to agree with Scott's comments, and the remedy for the 7th procrastination problem of being overwhelmed mentioned in the article as well. My personal schoolwork issues have arisen when I have so much work to do that I simply don't know where to begin, and with much trial and tribulation I have found a little tool that helps me get through my toughest time crunches: TO DO LISTS! By writing down every little thing I have to do, the big ominous idea of "getting all of my work done" seems more approachable when I can start completing something that seems more tangible and less threatening, the pattern continues until all your work is completed. Also, the action of checking off work that I have already done seems to be a little reward for my work, and just enough motivation for me to finish up and go the distance. I also find it more helpful to finish little tasks completely in its entirety, rather than jumping from big assignment to big assignment, getting confused and overwhelmed in the process.
Lack of Time, this is a subject that comes up in our work often. As a manager people tell me that there isn't time to get tasks complete. I have to be a little flexible. When is enough enough? The comment that most affected me in this article was the inability to say no. I would ask the writer of this article to explain further how to say no. It is not that easy.
We all at sometime or another find ourselves procrastinating, well I at least know I do. I think the one sign that stood out to me the most was "Tiredness." In today's society we are constantly go, go, going for what seems to be non-stop. We all are bound to get tired simply from the environment we have created for ourselves to live in. We will over work our bodies until they have nothing left to give. It is a lot of our own faults for becoming so tired and therefore procrastinating. We need to learn to give our bodies a break.
Number six on this list really resonated with me. When I seriously have to get work done, I always head to a library or a quiet study room. I have completely given up on working in my dorm room. Keeping work and play spaces separate is really helpful to keep from getting distracted. Whenever I am in a work space, I try to not talk to anyone, listen to music, or go on distracting websites like facebook.
I have battled with procrastination for a long time and some of the tools that I have started using recently fit into these symptoms and here is what I use:
1.I compiled a visual calendar that lets my visualize all of my projects and anything that I need to be aware of in the long term.
2.My to do list app estimates time so I know how much time I need to put into my work each day.
3.My to do list keeps me organized.
4. Still working on this one.
5.Not too much of an issue for me
6.I've started using what the article suggests here but I could take this a step further.
7.Breaking it down works, I accomplish this with my calendar and with my to do list.
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