Me every time: “Should I spend ten minutes completing this task now or stress about it for four days first? The latter seems good.” — Kelly Ellis
My most reliable hobby is spending an hour putting off a task that will take two minutes to complete. — Josh Gondelman
An hour is amateur. I’ve gone months. Years. — Helen Rosner, replying to Gondelman
I just cleaned my cat fountain, a task that just takes a few minutes but which I’ve been putting off for weeks. I finally did it because I knew I was writing this blog post.
14 comments:
I really wanted this article to have a point, or some advice to help deal with procrastination. I don't really think of myself as a procrastinator in the sense that I usually go to bed before midnight, and as long as my work gets done, and I get enough sleep, I don;t think the procrastination is too bad. That being said, it is Friday and I am just now writing these comments. But, this article was kind of strange because it talked about things that I don't really procrastinate on, like cleaning. The author said they put off cleaning the cat fountain until it became necessary, but I clean every two weeks because of that, for me, is necessary. Coming up with a schedule and managing time wisely is what I wished they had talked about, but instead, they only addressed what procrastination is.
I love the irony of reading this, as I procrastinated on comments until the end of the week. I do agree with the main claim at the end of this article, that procrastination comes from convincing yourself you will be in the mood to do something later that you don't want to do now. When you put something off, it is because you don't want to do it at the moment, but normally it really is just something you don't want to do, not ever. The idea of setting deadlines is a good motivator, but sometimes the deadlines are too flexible and keep getting pushed back. I don't think their is any certain way to stop procrastination from happening, some people may have a way that works for them but really nothing is universal other than just do it. Often that is the thing that I have to tell myself, is to just struggle through something now, so that way in an hour or so its over.
This is a topic that I have struggled with my entire life and obviously am still not amazing at as I do my comments at 10:19 on the Sunday that they are due. The issue is that I think people who procrastinate a lot, and I am speaking primarily from personal experience and first hand accounts, like the adventure of procrastination. They like to feel they excitement of wondering if they will really get it done or not. Granted that excitement is also stressful when your wrists hurt from typing so fast and you can't stop because the thing is due in 15 minutes, but it's better than jumping off buildings. I've also come to the conclusion that procrastination is just the way that some people work. My aunt who runs a very very successful business that she started almost 25 years ago stays up til the middle of the night some nights to do work after she watches 4 hours of TV. She knows it's wrong, she knows she shouldn't do it but you need the excitement. So what I tell myself, and what I tell other people is that as long as it gets done, and as long as it's not awful I don't really care how it happens. And hey it's not as exciting as bungie jumping or cliff diving or parachuting out of a plane but I don't really have time for any of that, I'm busy procrastinating.
I have spent many a late night wrapped warmly in the embrace of procrastination. It is really a terrible companion and things can get out of hand easily. I agree with Hannah – this article failed to address solutions to procrastination. I believe that this is mostly due to the fact that there isn’t a cohesive solution to combating the sweet embrace of “I’ll do it later”. Every person has his or her own method of keeping track of assignments and deadlines. There is no perfect pre-made solution. As long as you have your method that you maintain and it works, it’s all good. Finding that magical method is where the real problems come it. I know that certain people at this school preach the “Getting Things Done” method. Julian Goldman keeps a beautiful running to-do list. Helena has some online magical Gantt chart that emails her twice a day. Monica uses google calendar in ways that make you believe in an all-powerful software god. I use excel because I always have a computer and google calendar makes me frustrated. My whole point is that there is no singular solution the monster of procrastination. Figure out what works for you and roll with it.
I am a huge procrastinator. Not so much in my professional life (I tend to stay on track and focused there), but mostly in my personal and academic lives. I think the author makes a good point that making a public declaration can help keep you on track. I know if I have something really important to do, I will tell the people around me, "I have to have this finished by tonight. Please don't talk to me. And if you see me doing anything but this thing, please hit me in the back of the head." To be totally honest though, I don't usually need this. I am not just a procrastinator, I am a good procrastinator. I am almost never late in turning an assignment in, I always get gas before my car breaks down, and I pay my bills just before the late fee is applied. Why am I so successful? The panic monster the author mentions. My "instant gratification" monkey and my "let's work on the production instead" monkey both run and hide from the panic monster that says "You have to do this by this time, or else." I know exactly when that monster is going to emerge, and I know exactly how to appease him. That is how you successfully procrastinate.
Like many above and the author, I’m a horrible procrastinator. And it does not help to set a personal deadline when you know it is not really due the time you tell yourself. Neither does it help to make a public announcement of when you’d submit something, at least not for me. I know when things HAVE to be done so as long as I’m confident I can finish my tasks by that real deadline, I would not do anything early. Oddly, starting early feels like I’m wasting my time in the moment, because when I don’t have the pressure/excitement of approaching deadlines, I do things much more slowly. I’m someone who gets distracted very easily and only when I’m doing something that’s due in like a few hours can I concentrate 100% on the work at hand. I completely agree with the analysis that “Procrastinators delay a task because they’re not in the mood to do it and deceive themselves into thinking they will be later on.”
I only clicked on this article initially for the meme factor of me commenting about procrastination as I frantically finish my comments an hour before they are due, when we are given an entire week to do them. That being said, the article did make a few good points, though I definitely feel like there could have been more strategies or advice offered. The author pretty much talks exclusively about how deadlines generally force you to complete a task. Well, yeah. That's not too groundbreaking. I've been rushing to complete things before their deadlines for 21 years now. I definitely agree with the author's ideas, however, and I think I will try to make a conscious effort to be more declarative about smaller tasks that I want to accomplish. For example, I've been meaning to replace my Brita filter for weeks. This will take me approximately thirty seconds to actually do, but for some reason I can never just squeeze that extra thirty seconds into my very busy schedule of watching Netflix and napping. However, I am now publicly stating to the world that I will be replacing my Brita filter tonight, thanks to this article.
This is an age-old conundrum, and I have yet to find an answer or solution to this. The "panic monster" is one of my best friends, and over the years I have fallen into two traps. The first is my quality of work tends to be better under the stress of the "panic monster", as my focus is heightened and I am more single-mindedly invested in it. The second trap is that I know I perform better at the last minute, and so I think I always should. After all, if feels as though there is no point in doing something incrementally, and over time when I'll probably just be inclined to redo the whole thing (perhaps even better) at the last moment. I have tried the self-imposed deadline methodology time and again, to little or no results. At least now I know why this methodology does not work for me.
I've seen the TED Talk the article references before and it's honestly the perfect analogy for procrastination. I have had a terrible procrastination problem for my entire education, an example of which is me doing my last two comments in the hour before they are due. I literally already did three comments this week but I still managed to find a way to procrastinate the last two of them. I've gotten a little better since coming to college, but I've still definitely spent one too many long nights in the cluster frantically finding finishing a huge project. The way that I try to fight this problem is by breaking up projects into smaller chunks that can be done in one night. My biggest problem now is that I tend to leave the last bit of each project until the night before. The only exception to this is group projects, as I always feel accountable to someone else and don't want to keep them up too late working on it. Maybe I need to start thinking about myself in the same way, as it can frankly be exhausting and is not sustainable.
I’ve always struggled with procrastination, but in some more unexpected ways. I’m usually very good about school work and production work, but in terms of my personal life I tend to fall apart. I also procrastinate on small tasks, but not big ones. Additionally, I tend to work in large chunks, then not at all for a long time, and usually I’m more motivated at night. I think one of the keys to procrastination is understanding the ways you do it and trying to work around them. In our industry it’s especially hard because we can’t really get into a routine. We are constantly switching from rehearsal to performance (day to night), with tech thrown in. I know for me, I try to establish as much of a routine as I can. I know when my most effective hours are for schoolwork (3-6pm) versus housework (10pm-Midnight) and make room to do work there. I also group several small tasks together to get in a ‘power hour’. So far, it hasn’t been catastrophic, but we’ll see I guess.
I am a procrastinator and I always have been. I also always hand things in by the deadline unless I ask for an extension because I do not like handing in late work. This means I will stay up very late and finish the work until it is done no matter what. I do not know why I do not start homework and other assignments earlier when they are assigned. I usually have more free time leading up to an assignment, but waste that time doing other things like relaxing or hanging out with friends. This is great in the moment when I am not doing work, but it is terrible the night before something is due and I am staying up all night to finish it. You would think after all of these years in school that by senior year of college I would be better about doing my work earlier, but no not that much has changed in when I do my homework. I do think I am a lot more focused when I have a strict deadline that I am trying to hit because there is no other choice. If I have more time to finish something I will most likely use that time to sit around and procrastinate.
I opened this article expecting a solution to procrastinating but instead I just got some advice and a little more knowledge. Prior to reading this article I had actually seen the Ted Talk he mentions in the article. It is worth noting that at the time I had been pretty big on procrastinating; although not as bad as others I knew but still fairly bad. Upon watching the video, it helped very little because he basically does just tell you it worked out for him, just as the article claims, and it is implied that you won’t be so lucky. However, he also mentions that there is a correlation to procrastination and that if you procrastinate a little it can actually help versus diving straight in because it gives you time to think it over and get an idea – assuming you know what you have to do when you get whatever it is you are going to procrastinate on. This helped me a lot I think because it basically told me that it is not the end of the world if I don’t start immediately but that I should also not start super late, find the middle ground. Since then I have actually not procrastinated anything, for the most part. I figured out how to better manage my time and set priorities for what needs to be done. What I believe I also did that I didn’t really realize was to ignore that voice that says I will be in the mood to do something later. Instead what I do is give myself a minute or create breaks to help me get through something when I’m not in the mood and it helps a lot. This article opened my eyes up to that but I believe it was something I managed to figure out on my own, so in the end; this is a really helpful article.
This article hit pretty close to home. I am currently in the middle of trying to fix the procrastinating I’ve done on these comments. I think a portion of that procrastination comes from the lack of a deadline and because of that, like the article said, “a lack of a panic monster to scare off the instant gratification monkey.” I think that if these comments were due weekly like they have been in the past I may have remembered them and done less procrastinating. In order to fix this I am trying to make the panic monster show up on my own terms so that I can hold myself to the case of catching up on the writing I’ve fallen behind on. I’ve also made a public declaration of intent like the article suggested, so hopefully that will help too.
This article has a great hook to get people to read it, but not much substance beyond that. Sure, we all know that we procrastinate, and yeah, it is not the best way to work effectively, most of the time. But to me, it seems like a completely viable option for many people, myself included most days. For me, it is about doing things that actually interest you. I only procrastinate when my work bores me. I have no problem getting homework done that is interesting. It is about investing yourself in what you are doing. Make the work seem worth while. Sure writing interp papers is usually the lowest thing on our to do lists, but if you think of them in a way that makes them relevant to what we do, then they are not so bad. If instead of writing a research proposal, think of it as learning how to ask for funding for a new theatre project. There are ways to make almost anything applicable in a field as variable as theatre.
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