Procrastination: to what degree a Dud?

'What do we want?'

'Procrastination!'

'When do we want it?'

'Next week'

Now, in the "Real World" (tm) I realise that learning how to procrastinate effectively was a far MORE valuable skill than any of the stupid skills there were trying to teach me in the work I avoided.

So, procrastination: utter CLASSIC

help me procrastinate

Try downloading Lemmings.

why hello

oh hai

you know what was great? when i spent 75% of my junior year of college playing snood.

i've got plenty of procrastination to go around right now

procrastination is ruining my life! i waste way too many hours sitting at my computer telling myself to work on grad school and job applications. i should either just DO it or find more fun ways to procrastinate.

also, one of my roommates says in response to the second post:
"what do we want?"
"apathy!"
"when do we want it?"
"whenever...."

Nowadays I mostly just small-scale procrastinate (furtive ILX posts while studying). Don't even have time to large-scale procrastinate.

too late i finished my work

im terrible at this.

me too. i'm procrastinating from going to bed right now, for no good reason... i'm bored out of my brain and may as well be asleep. But i just wasted an hour looking at pointless internet sites and blogs. time i will never get back, boohoo. i'm going to go to bed right now and read a chapter of the time management book i have out of the library.

i think i waste a good few hours each day on nothing which makes me feel a bit shit.

i might need to get one of those books.

Ugghgghggh

IKEA expidit shelf still sittin' in its box, 2 weeks after I purchased it :/

naughty trayce

i will construct it next week for you for two (2) beers

lol, careful or I'll take you up on that!

Its more the fact that once built, all the stereo gumf and new giganto teev has to be moved onto it, and Nick isnt being any help at all "ehh im too tired". &*^^$

I've become very adept at scheduling everything around my wanting to do sweet fuck all 100% of the time

<3

Me, y'day arvo: "really should drop by the azn grocers after work and get some supplies"
Me, aftr work: "ehhh... too tired, i can do it tomorrow
me, lunchtime: "rly should pop up at lunch and get azn groceries... eh, I can go after work"
Placing all bets I come up with some excuse and dont go after work either.

$50

j/k

That's normal level procrastination -- my worst moments are when I have to work on a project, it's due in a few days, and I can't even bear to open the file it's contained in because I just can't bear to look at/think about it.

Oh I agree. My worst procras currently is 5 years of unlodged tax returns :/

That's more like it.

I'm the worst with writing assignments...I wait at least 2 or 3 weeks before starting them, glance at it once and write an outline, goof off for another week and then spend the days before deadline running around like I'm going to have a hearto trying to get everything together and end up emailing it at midnight on the day it's due.

But yeah that sick feeling of knowing it's there to be done and playing chicken with it, pushing further and further to see how long before it all explodes in your face...oh sweet self loathing

Totally, and the worst part -- the absolute WORST PART -- is that I am a writing teacher. I force students to stick to deadlines and write outlines and not procrastinate. But...

That's what makes my procrastination feel so terrible. I feel like (and I guess I am) a total hypocrite. I know that I could use this as "I'm like you! I get it!" angle but the truth is that I am supposed to be beyond that.
And I am not. Working on it, not there.

I've worked up a disguise whereby I'm an organisational machine at work, everything under control and on time and taken care of. I maintain my cover in order that no-one will find out what a mess I am when I leave the office. Occasionally holes appear but so far, so good. Lalala I'm not crazy deedledeedee

Hahah sounds like my job, I seed the workplace with visual clues and emails and "hey im doin it" but really... I do nothing for ages then barrel thru late work in half an hour of compressed panic.

Let it be known that I never actually miss the deadline. I just wait and wait and wait until I have no other option but to complete the task.

i dont miss work deadlines but I do miss deadlines in my freelancing bc they dont push back and oh do i push. not proud of it. but it feeds the selfloathing enough to power my procrastination. ugh

so much empathy la lechera, i do the same - if it helps, the same is true of every other freelancer i've spoken to on the subject

(actually there does seem to be a massive UK/US divide on this, US freelance journalists seem to be scarily...professional)

Maybe they're just better at pretending to be?

(that's what I tell myself - "everyone else procrastinates as much as me and probably worse, it's just that they're better at hiding it")

aaagh procrastination is making me hate myself atm

woke up early to do work, have not done the work. making some tea now. repeating mantra "do the work and the work gets done"
and yet

Make a list, start with "make a list", tick it off straight away - there you go, you've beaten procrastination!

Just joined an 'accountability group' lol.

finished writing the thing i was procrastinating on
i think i just had to publicly out myself as having a really terrible procrastination time this week in order to get out of that state
it always feels better when you do the work (<-- another mantra)

i have more to do now but on a different article and it doesn't have such pressure attached to it. it's always the ones with pressure (much of it imaginary, but not always) that bring about profound procrastination. which i think it a form of self-sabotage that must be fought, now that i've seen it try to drag me down again when i thought i was over it. fuck you, procrastination! i will not be feeding you beer or netflix anymore! (<-- putting this here for future reminding. hello, future robyn, just do your work so it gets done, okay? NOW.)

I am reading David Copperfield and I got a real OMG EPIPHANY JOLT when Micawber said: "Never put off to tomorrow what you can do to today. Procrastination is the thief of time. Collar him!"
In attempting to live by this dictum I have become so completely exhausted that I can't get a goddamn thing done. I would say "try and keep some net balance in your to-do list for fuck's sake" might be a better guiding principle for me.

summary
procrastination bad
too much stuff in a day also bad

whither happy mediums?

I have a trouble with my procrastination pendulum going from one extreme to the other too, I totally, 100% relate to this.

This seems relevant: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

holy shit this is me

I really think this is the thing that's destroying the best minds of my generation.

Your generation's best minds can't be that bloody good if they never get round to anything. I reckon the best minds are doing quite well thanks, and it's the mediocre minds that sit around faffing all day.

thank you for that perspective

Kurt Vonnegut had a similar one iirc

i'll look it up some other time

I just did something that I'd put off for 2 years and another thing that I'd put off for 1 year and I can't brag about it on twitter or fb because it's pathetic so I'm begging here either to be congratulated or slapped, your choice

You're stretching the proverbial wisdom of 'better late than never', but I'll allow it. Congratulations!

i have tons of those things. i've been working on painting the same room for 4 years now. congratulations!

thank you!

what's worse is that neither took more than about 5 minutes, and together, both tasks will net me about 1000 euros. I was just too...whatever...to send back receipts for reimbursement.

& by too "whatever" I don't mean that I don't need the money, I mean I was too...lazy? anxious? I don't know? to do them.

you had a blockage and you got through it -- congrats! i think a lot of people have activity-specific psychological blockages that prevent them from completing tasks that are quite easy and straightforward. glad you got over it, whatever it was :)

thanks! I don't like turning in receipts for travel reimbursement, because I always get stressed that I've done something wrong & they won't accept the receipts. So I put it off. & then my lateness becomes an even bigger problem than whatever I'm worried that I did wrong. But I got past these two!

Now I need to deal with something that I've put off for...10 years now?...that is really much worse than what I did yesterday, & is never going to be easier until I tell all the involved parties that honestly I am never going to do what I said I would, which they all probably think already, and will resent me for this forever, but probably not in a huge way, & anyway I should just do it but but but...

something that I've put off for...10 years now?

that's a very long time to be engaged but not get married

Procrastination: Actually about anxiety. Now with 100% more scientific info to back it up!

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-procrastinate-it-has-nothing-to-do-with-self-control.html

Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.

“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” said Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa.

exactly

“Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem"---definitely for me, I put off what I can't deal with at the moment, and when my inability to deal with it lasts a long time, so does the procrastination.

"that's a very long time to be engaged but not get married" haha no, it's a book of essays I'm supposed to publish, with contributions from a number of people, including one of my own. It's been under contract with a "big" publisher for the last decade, and I have all the essays, but for reasons I haven't sent in the final version. And I get upset even thinking about it because it's all so silly but that's never enough to get me to just do it.

can you hand the final process over to a modestly competent stand-in who can be credited as your collaborator?

that is a really good idea! One problem is that I already have a collaborator on the project who, it was made clear to me after I said yes, has done & will do nothing for the project. This has contributed to my paralysis. But if I could find another collaborator who would actually help...good idea!

I mean, with a different collaborator I finished another collection of essays a few months ago: so it's not the nature of the project in general, it's something about this project & something about me, & it's all dumb & boring & makes me feel terrible whenever I think about it & I would soooo love to be finished with it & all of the bad feelings it comes with but getting it done will involve confronting a whole lot of bad feelings too maybe? I really don't know anymore, which is why I never get it done.

Just to be absolutely clear, your inability to crash past your feelings and finish this project says nothing about your worth as a person, your basic competence or abilities, or your lovability. This experience is precisely in line with similar experiences that literally everyone you know can relate to, because they've done practically the same thing, most likely multiple times.

It sounds like you are now ready to take this particular bull by the horns and finally dispose of it -- that's fabulous in itself and when you've chosen your path ahead and done it, imagine how you'll celebrate!

thanks! yeah, I am doing alright "in life", this hasn't materially affected me, but finishing it is a responsibility I owe to many others & ultimately to myself.

i think my procrastination is also related to undiagnosed adhd tbqh

One problem is that I already have a collaborator on the project who, it was made clear to me after I said yes, has done & will do nothing for the project.

Tbh this would virtually guarantee that I never worked on the project at all because I would feel deeply negative about it.

i think my procrastination is also related to undiagnosed adhd tbqh

― Give me a Chad Smith-type feel (map), Tuesday, September 1, 2020 1:51 PM (twenty-five minutes ago)

ME

but the procrastination also keeps me from doing anything about it

Procrastination wouldn't be any fun if it wasn't tied to anxiety.

So Again, Dangerous Syllogisms really is never going to come out after all? There’s gonna be a lot of disappointed writers as well as fanbase.

Also, everybody otm about the nature of the beast.

Had a good chat with my therapist today about the stuff in orbit posted upthread. I fill my own head up with so many reasons “why not” before I even really get started on something.

I feel like my best years have been when I made solid promises to people I cared about, that I had to keep, or even better, when I was in a situation like formal education where deadlines were fixed and couldn’t be fudged at all. Another good example is as silly as the last two ILX comps, where another poster in another country suggested a loose deadline, and I went ahead and did everything I could to ensure my tracks were ready on time.

In my personal life, I give up on things far too easily. I think the only thing that makes me even get out of bed on a weekend is the threat of general shame at being a lousy dad.