Let’s be honest, procrastination has hit us all one way or another. Even the best of us sometimes fall victim to it. We must remember that we all make mistakes and there will be times in which we will procrastinate. However, we should try our best to improve. So how can we try not to fall into procrastination?
1. Understand what makes you procrastinate. This step is very essential so we can come up with solutions.
In my case, reading made me procrastinate. Reading isn’t necessarily a bad thing but once you’re reading instead of actively working on your priorities, it truly becomes a problem. I would spend nights reading on my phone and had lack of sleep. Therefore I was also very tired and couldn’t perform as I needed to.
2. Define your goals. Writing down goals is very important as it gives you a specific end to work to. The goals are your expectations and having SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound) will help you work effectively.
I decided I must do up to 5 tasks related to my priorities each day. I can’t read until I finish those tasks.
3. Identify possible courses of actions. This is the stage in which you’ll come up with ways to achieve those goals. The solutions you come up with have to help you find a way to overcome the reasons why you procrastinate.
Each week I must plan an overview of relevant goals I want to accomplish. Each night, as part of my night routine, I must write down important tasks I have to do the next day in order to achieve those goals. These can’t be more than 5 and I must make sure I can absolutely do those tasks. In order to avoid reading, I downloaded an app called self-control on my phone and laptop in order to avoid the sites I read stories on. In case I fail to accomplish this and decide to read, I must give my mom my phone for a day. My night routine starts at 6 PM, which means I can read till 6 PM in order not to disrupt my sleeping cycle.
4. Identify when you are the most productive. Some people are night-owls while others are early-risers. What time are you the most productive? When you know this, you can schedule a time to work on your priorities.
I work best in the early morning. Most people find my waking hours atrocious. However getting things done as early as 3 AM does wonders to me. Most people are already asleep at that time, which means no distractions coming from mobile notifications. The internet is crazy fast at that hour. And the quietness of everything makes me go real deep, real quick into my work.
5. Keep track of your habits. This will help you see how you’re actually working and it’s also the perfect time to reevaluate if things are going the way you want. Here you can also give yourself feedback. And if necessary, you can also go back and repeat the process.
It’s important to remember that each one of us has their own ways of working. What works for me, might not work for you. I encourage you all to experiment with all sorts of things in order to find a way that works for you and kick procrastination’s ass like a boss.
(Not saying you should live off of this but my favorite school phenomena is grown ass professors giving me better scores because I’m sociable with them)
Always make friends w your professors, if possible. They’ll be more willing to be lenient with you if they get to know you. Also, them being able to pick you out of a crowd will be good for letters of rec and networking.
My father wrote me a book, and I haven’t read it. My father and I are as alike as any father and daughter have any right to be, in spirit, temperament, and assuredness of our capability. I tell you this because the book is about him, and thus, essentially about me, and that’s not the only reason I can’t read it.
If I read the book, he will obviously die. If I don’t read the book, he will definitely, without question, also die, but a different death. Neither more sad nor terrible than the other, but different in their command over bad guilt or dumb grief. I will either feel like dying myself because I did not read it when he was alive, or I will be so adept at imagining him dead I will be weeping at his non-grave, sitting across from him at the table as he lowers the newspaper to look curiously at his weeping daughter. It is also with certainty that reading the book will kill me, either with love so deep it drowns me in profound agony, or in that I will see how light and fire and good personalities burn out into dusty pieces of ash, particles we breathe in and sneeze out on a bus while strangers glare passively in our general direction. We are all just piles of molecules, dead on arrival. What and why, etc.
Reading the book will kill us both, and not reading it is killing us both, and being dead either way does not make approaching it any less dreadful.
So instead I just hold the plastic three-ring binder from somewhere like Staples because he doesn’t know you can just find that kind of thing at Walgreens. And when all I have is that binder, he would be paper cuts and glue coming undone from photos with no jpegs or even negatives, just the one photo of the one thing that he stuck to a page for his daughter so she could be proud of him so one day she could cry so hard hoping so profoundly that he had been proud of her.
So, I can’t read the book because I have to. I don’t have a choice.
I bring this up because we’re both in good health and I am deeply superstitious, and sometimes I like to wave things in the face of my superstition to see what comes of them. Also, because one of the characters in the novel I am writing is based on my dad, and that character dies, so I’ve been crying a lot.
This novel has been a long-time coming, in that the characters first came to me in 2014. Thus far they have been very patient with me, but I could feel them rumbling, packing their things or dying somewhere in my computer, and I knew I needed to act quickly. I booked a room up the California coast where no one could ask me, well, anything, and I started to write again.
Kill your darlings doesn’t always mean slogging them off with machetes, but sometimes cutting their character information and pasting it into a document of Dead Darlings, ctrl+F’ing their name, and deleting—watching the word count fall with them. Sorry, Hannah. Sorry, Red.
Once upon a time, I wrote frequently for free, and now I write infrequently for money. And that, as far as I can tell for myself, has not resulted in the kind of life I want. But this is a hard thing for me to parse. Some coworkers read this (hi! Please don’t tell me if you read this) and I would very much like to keep my well-paying job so I can continue to fantasize about buying a home so that one day I can do things like paint a wall yellow and then wonder if it was a bad idea. I also would like (for no reason I can discern other than growing up middle class in Ohio) to own a big truck with big wheels with a big engine so I can joyfully drive to the back of every parking lot because that’s the only place it will fit. And these things cost more money than I was making writing for free, as you can surmise by the word “free.”
A year or so ago, I was taking the Yale course on Happiness through Coursera (of course not knowing when I was rejected from Yale as an insulted 17-year-old that I eventually could take all the interesting classes for free without ever doing the homework.) It prompted me to take a happiness survey. I love quizzes about my personality (which any personality quiz will tell you about me right away — Type 7, ENFP.) When I went to create an account, it told me I could not. An account under that email already existed. I cocked my head like a dog at the computer to emphasize to myself my own confusion, and I turned immediately to the search bar of my email to get to the bottom of this.
It turns out, I had taken the exact same quiz some 4 years prior. And the results were still in my account. The internet giveth. But, of course, the internet also taketh away: upon taking the quiz again, I was happier, but not by much. This didn’t make sense. In 2014, I had an emotionally abusive boyfriend, lived in a 150 sq ft room where I was not allowed to make noise (!), and often couldn’t leave work for spans of 30 hours at a time. But in the 2018 quiz, I was making significantly more money working fewer hours, I was in a happy and supportive relationship, I lived in a cool ass house with cool ass pets — where was my goddamned happiness?
I took that quiz in November and assuming you’re currently experiencing time the same way that I am, it is now March, wait, no, it’s April, and I spent the last five months carefully examining what made me happy and what didn’t. And like any person who’s had to have the phrase “forest for the trees” explained to them multiple times, I couldn’t see what was painfully obvious to 97% of people who knew me: when I’m not writing, I’m not happy.
And I’m not talking about tagline writing, or UX writing, or writing scripts for product features, or writing about bike rentals in Ventura, or any of the writing I was actually doing. I could still slip into flow on those things. I could still get excited and get lost in the rhythm, but upon completion, it felt like planning a trip with friends only for them all to have something come up, and the plan get pushed another indefinite year.
At some point, you just have to take the trip yourself, and I thought that trip would be this newsletter, but I’ve struggled to write more newsletters because of two things: why buy the cow, etc., but also because it feels like there needs to be a point. And while I suspect those are beliefs I should investigate and dismantle, today I happen to have a point, so here it is:
If doing something doesn’t feel right and you don’t need to do it to survive, you should probably do less of it. And if there is something you feel called to do, but feel you don’t have time to do it, you should probably take a long hard look at your calendar and (oh boy) your choices.
It’s been five years since I sat down with these characters, and in the meantime, my dad sat down and transcribed his entire life pre-my-mom with photos. It’s page after page of wild parties, broke down cars, school dropouts, ski towns, jumping out of airplanes, fighting fire, and living in the wilderness all so his daughter could be like, “sorry Dad, I can’t book a ski trip 3 months in advance because there’s no way this tech company with 250 other employees could find a way to replace my somewhat vague skill-set for a Friday. Also I gave up on my dreams. Thanks for the book.“
Holding the three-ringed binder, looking at the printed title page he’d slipped under the plastic cover, feeling such pride and love it could distort the proportions of the room, I knew when I would be ready to read it: when I could send my dad my finished manuscript so he could read what he’d made of me while I read what he’d made of himself.
So I’m in a cottage up the coast from where I live, away from the cat in my lap and the dog at my side, away from morning coffees and goodbye kisses, far far away from bosses and emails, and the farthest away from what doesn’t feel right in order to get closer to what does.
Thanks for reading. Subscribe to the newsletter here.
One time in college, I flew to visit my friend in another country during reading week (the week before finals that you’re supposed to spend studying). I was set to come back to school the night before my final, which I thought was a take-home final. On the last day of my visit, we went out and got really drunk (her fault… probably). Next day, I drag my hungover ass to the airport in total agony, get to my gate, sit down, open my laptop to study for the first time and realize that I had been mistaken. My final the next day was in class. Not take home. And I had not studied at all. And I was too hungover to function. Well, I thought, I guess failing isn’t the worst thing in the world.There’s a first time for everything.
My flight was delayed, and I ended up not getting home until 9pm. Still hungover, I begrudgingly stayed up most of the night trying to scrape together what I could in hopes of pulling off a miracle. After all, I’d spent years honing my procrastination craft. Don’t fail me now!
I went in the next morning aggressively ignoring my classmates. The last thing I wanted to hear was how hard they had been studying. The professor passed out the exam, and as I flipped through it I realized, holy crap, I can do this! I don’t know how I am possibly about to get away with this, but I am!
As I walked out, I heard a few classmates remark how hard they thought the exam was. I couldn’t believe it. I ended up getting an A- and my favorite story of my entire academic career. Thank god for my insane BS-ing skills.
So, since I’m procrastinating right now, what are your best procrastination stories?
I can’t focus unless there’s a metaphorical knife pressed to my throat that has just pricked my skin and caused blood to start trickling down my chest. Otherwise, it can wait until tomorrow.
Day 15 is con crunch and literally every costume I always end up rushing down to the last minute (at least I haven’t taken my sewing machine to a con in a few years…)… when will I know peace . . #shepropchallenge #sheprop #cosplay #cosplaychallenge #costume #anime #wigs #sewing #sewingproject #convention #wip #lastmin #rushing #concrunch #procrastination #crafting https://www.instagram.com/p/CFLEVsjD3l-/?igshid=17gqtet7ru1e5
based on this post, with my own additions. these tips can be used both for school tasks and for everyday tasks like cooking or cleaning, but they are mostly focussed on school!
not working because you feel tired?
eat and drink something! often I don’t notice that I’m hungry or thirsty and just feel really fatigued and don’t know why. then I eat/drink and feel better really quickly!
have something with a bit of caffeine.
try to expose yourself to natural (or at least bright) light.
do a mini workout to get your heart pumping. skipping is fun?
keep yourself stimulated. play upbeat music, use bright colours in your notes, etc.
not working because you’re struggling to think straight or or organise your thoughts?
talk through what you need to get done with a friend, your teacher/professor, etc. they can help you organise your thoughts around the task and come up with a plan!
break the task up into small, easy to approach chunks. write them down.
use a visual planning method like a mindmap to organise your thoughts - putting them down like this can help you sort out the confusing tangled mess of thoughts in your brain.
not working because you feel bored or frustrated with the task and are struggling to push through it?
reward yourself for completing parts of the task (keep the reward non-distracting though, or it can lead to the next problem!). you could set up an accountability system with a friend - they could, for example, promise to bake you something if you manage to get a task done on time.
list the reasons why you should finish the task. use these as motivation.
relieve your restless energy by doing something active during your breaks (like working out), and by keeping yourself stimulated while working on the task (for example by using a fidget toy).
if it’s frustrating because it’s difficult, get help!
modify the task to make it a bit more fun. relate it back to your interests, use fun stationery, etc. this might involve asking your teacher/professor if you can complete an alternate task. they’re usually pretty accommodating.
not working because you’re distracted by other activities?
use an app like ‘Forest’ to encourage you to work solidly on your task for a period of time without getting distracted.
block distracting websites.
write down thoughts and activities that you want to come back to later after finishing your task, rather than getting caught up in them.
related to above - use the Chrome extension ‘Tab Snooze’ to put distracting browser tabs away for later.
if you don’t need internet for your task, go work somewhere where you can’t access the internet.
not working because you feel stressed about the task and trying to do it makes you feel worse?
try the two-minute rule - work on the task for just two minutes. you might find that after this time the initial anxiety around starting the task has faded and you can continue to work on it.
similarly, break your task up into small, manageable chunks and approach them one-by-one. remember that something is better than nothing, even if that something is just writing out the subheadings in your report.
try to make your work environment calm and comfy to soothe you while you work on the task - turn a heater on if you like it to be warm, keep the space minimal and organised, play calm music, etc.
get help from others! a chat with a friend or teacher/professor about the task can help reassure you and they will probably also have helpful advice about how to approach it.
(Here’s another poem that warns against procrastination. It is very similar to “Song of Tomorrows” (《明日歌》) in terms of meaning in the second half. A link to the translation for that poem here.)
Gold Embroidered Garment
By Unknown Poet (Tang dynasty, between 7th to 10th century)
A caution to thee against the gold embroidered garments (1),
And an advice to value thy youthful years.
Cut the flowers whilst they are still blooming,
For when they wither only bare stems shall remain.
—————————-
Notes:
Gold embroidered garments: a metaphor for riches, or an affluent lifestyle.
2 sculptural porcelain stem vases that I finished last month (or, last year, depending on how you look at it). They’ve been living on my kitchen counter ever since but will be landing soon (i.e. before next year) in my Etsy shop. #procrastination #pottery #homedecor #ceramics #etsy #handmade #modernhome #porcelain #design #kitchen #modern #contemporary #sculpture #vase #photography #photoprops #kitchendecor https://www.instagram.com/p/BsbH9Kxg_7y/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1h63sao436an3
aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)
lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)
1) do I honestly intendto start the task despite my lack of success?
yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?
yes:next question
no:guess what? this is the real next task
3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?
yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
no:next question
4) do I know how to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.
5) do I have everything I need to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.
6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?
i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.
no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t.
reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.
8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!
probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU
This is…entirely too real lol
OP thinks finishing tasks isn’t important??? some schools give you a zero for unfinished work
oh no, I do think finishing tasks is important! the whole point of most of this checklist is helping people start things they’re having trouble starting so they *can* complete the task - can’t finish what you don’t start, right?
but point 7 of the checklist is for what happens when you’re stressing out super badly b/c you were unable to start a task for so long it’s now literally impossible for you to finish it. it suggests that if you can’t finish, you might as well do part of the task anyway.
However,
if you’re in a situation where:
partially completed work does not get partial credit / gets a zero, same as if you turned in nothing
there’s no possibility for an extension / a zero-tolerance policy for late work
then suggesting that you finish whatever part you can finish doesn’t apply to your situation at all.
In your situation, I would change that point to say:
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start i’m just punishing myself for procrastinating until I guaranteed I’d fail.
reality check: i didn’t succeed in starting this work early enough this time, but that’s okay. punishing myself by stressing about the work I didn’t do won’t get it done. I can make a plan to help me succeed next time, such as getting someone to check in with me before it’s too late to finish.
if I didn’t fully understand the material in class, finishing part of the work might help me better understand it, even if I can’t get credit for it. if I did, I might as well let this go and enjoy myself fully instead of worrying about a task that’s no longer relevant.
the rest of the world wants to punish us enough for failing to finish things on time. zero tolerance policies for incomplete/late work is one of the harshest ways we’re punished for it. it’s harmful to people with executive dysfunction because it discourages us to bother fighting our bad habits when we procrastinate too long. (and that’s terrible, but it’s hard to get people to change their minds on this.)
so yes: it’s important to finish things whenever we can because the world is so hard on ppl who don’t finish things!
but that doesn’t mean we have to punish ourselves, too.
I hope this checklist/flowchart helps my fellow procrastinators out there. Best of luck to you all in achieving what needs to be done!
THIS IS BEAUTIFUL AND HELPFUL, I love it!!!
reminder: you’re not lazy and you’re not a jerk. we’ve been taught to think executive dysfunction or mental health stumbling blocks are a moral failing, but they are not! not everything can be solved by willpower alone.
aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)
lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)
1) do I honestly intendto start the task despite my lack of success?
yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?
yes:next question
no:guess what? this is the real next task
3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?
yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
no:next question
4) do I know how to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.
5) do I have everything I need to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.
6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?
i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.
no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t.
reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.
8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!
probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU
Ooh, this is a really lovely (and kind-hearted) guide for ADHD, executive dysfunction issues, or just plain ol’ brain fog! Should help with misplaced guilt, too.
aka why tf am i procrastinating on The Thing (more like a flowchart, actually)
lots of people who have executive function difficulties worry about whether they’re procrastinating on a task out of laziness/simply wanting to be a jerk or mental struggles. this checklist might help you figure out which it is at any given time! (hint: it’s almost never laziness or being a jerk.) (obligatory disclaimer: this is just what works for me! something different might work better for you.)
1) do I honestly intendto start the task despite my lack of success?
yes: it’s a Brain Problem. next question
no: it’s shitty to say one thing & do another. better be honest with myself & anyone expecting me to do the task.
2) am I fed, watered, well-rested, medicated properly, etc?
yes:next question
no:guess what? this is the real next task
3) does the idea of starting the task make me feel scared or anxious?
yes: Anxiety Brain. identify what’s scaring me first.
no:next question
4) do I know how to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain. time to make an order of operations list.
5) do I have everything I need to start the task?
yes:next question
no:ADHD Brain lying to me about the steps again, dangit. first task is ‘gather the materials’.
6) why am i having a hard time switching from my current task to this new task?
i’m having fun doing what i’m doing: it’s okay to have fun doing a thing! if task is time-sensitive, go to next question.
i have to finish doing what i’m doing: might be ADHD brain. can I actually finish the current task or will I get trapped in a cycle? does this task really need to be finished?
the next task will be boring/boring-er than the current task: ADHD brain. re-think the next task. what would make it exciting? what am I looking forward to?
I might not have enough time to complete the task: ADHD brain wants to finish everything it starts. (if task is time-sensitive, go to next question)
i just want to make the person who asked me to do it angry: sounds like anxiety brain trying to punish itself, because I know I’ll be miserable if someone is angry at me. why do i think I deserve punishment?
no, I seriously want to piss them off: okay, i’m being a shithead
7) have I already procrastinated so badly that I now cannot finish the task in time?
yes: ADHD brain is probably caught in a guilt-perfection cycle. since I can’t have the task done on time, i don’t even want to start.
reality check: having part of a thing done is almost always better than none of a thing done. if I can get an extension, having part of it done will help me keep from stalling out until the extension deadline. i’ll feel better if I at least try to finish it.
no, there’s still a chance to finish on time: ADHD brain thinks that I have all the time in the world, but the truth is I don’t.
reality check: if i’m having fun doing what I’m doing, I can keep doing it, but I should probably set a timer & ask someone to check on me to make sure I start doing the task later today.
8) I’ve completed the checklist and still don’t know what’s wrong!
probably wasn’t honest enough with myself. take one more look.
if I’m still mystified, ask a friend to help me talk it out.
hope this helps some of you! YOU’RE DOING GREAT SWEETIE DON’T GIVE UP ON YOU
