Thursday, October 08, 2009
Tips from the Trenches: Fending Off Procrastination
WebWorkerDaily: "No matter how good you’re doing on your quest for supreme efficiency, some days you’ll run into the ugly wall of procrastination. For this “Tips from the Trenches” post, I asked some experts and fellow Twitter users to share their tips for battling procrastination and “not-in-the-mood-itis.”"
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6 comments:
The two things that work best for me in order to avoid procrastination, as well as things that Joe mentions in his Time-Management lecture, are starting early and announcing your task. As soon as I get an assignment I start work on it, as long as other homework is done. It also helps to switch it up, keep the assignment interesting. If you become frustrated, move on to a task that looks more appealing. If you tell people that you are going to do something, you've essentially created a support system. The majority of people WILL get on your case for not sticking to your word.
When I find myself procrastinating I find that is from overworking myself. I will be so tired of doing work that I talk myself into taking a "break" which actually just ways to avoid my work for as long as I can. The best way I found to avoid this extend vacation away from work is actually take small breaks. I'll work on an assignment for while, and then watch a TV episode to relax. This improves the quality of my work because I ready to start working, and my mind is rested.
I've always found the best way to keep myself from procratinating is to shirt into work. Start with something easy that really isn't work related, and then ramp up the difficult. Also, if it's a large assignment, being able to complete the project without disrupting what I'm doing already helps as well since if I have enough time and find myself really focused the work seems to go faster and generally I would rather not stop part of the way through. Really, the best advice the article gave was start early and if you just can't focus, take a little bit of a break. I've found both of those strategies work really well for me, despite the fact that sometimes the break I take can be something completely non-productive.
This article helps some and i agree with most of them. the one that doesn't help me is the woman who said give it an hour.... its never going to be an hour. one hour will turn into 3 or 4. I have don't that so many times and every time i said only an hour or this is the last episode on hulu i will watch. for me, exercise and cleaning help me get into the mood. When i draft i need to clean first to get myself in the mood.
A lot of these things seem like they would be difficult at first but then get easier. Why not just do that for procrastination directly? Well, i guess these seem like they would be easier to get to that point than not procrastinating. I've found that for me, planning at first while you may be walking or just waiting for a bus -- in these little snippets of time -- one may begin to plan and get the mental juices flowing. also, doing it little by little will sort of fake me out to thinking that i haven't really done that much which will in turn motivate me to do more when in reality I've done quite a bit. However, I've only gotten good at this about half the time...
There are so many articles written about tips and tricks to avoid procrastination, or to better time manage. However, I believe that in spending time trying to not procrastinate, you actually end up procrastinating more.
Besides planning and deciding how to distribute the time you have, how you work on each individual project will be different. While some projects might work best by taking small breaks at regular intervals, some projects will only be possible if done in one large lump of time. Each project must be evaluated and not every technique can be applied to each project.
However, I do like the idea of telling someone about your goals. It makes you accountable to someone other than yourself, which is sometimes a huge motivator to accomplish your goals.
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