Help me get un-stuck!

So we've got two days to answer, right?

well, a bit sooner would be nice :P Right now would be even better!

ritalin

Surfing on ILX surely helps.

I'm the worst person to ask. First I'd waste half a day making the ultimate schedule (8:30-9:30 chapter 1 9:30-10:00 internet 10:00-11:00 chapter 2 11:00-11:30 coffee, newspaper, go outside and get sandwiches for lunch ETCETERA), then that would invariably slip (sudden appearances of internet sites that are extremely interesting and have links to other interesting sites that require googling and wikipedia searches), but I never panic, since I know I'm a brilliant genius who can write it all in the two hours after I wake up and before I leave tomorrow. Which I do. And then fail and blame the teacher.

^^^my entire college experience

speed

Do you still need to do research? I've got mad access to all the libraries in the WORLD. Well, not all, but a lot.

PROVIGIL

I was just reading about that stuff Abbott. supposed to be good for shift workers. Does it let you do w/o sleep?

provigil only seems to help so much

i know it's prescribed for narcoleptics. i heard that it's less grating than adderall.

What's your paper about? just start explaining it to us as if we know nothing. before you know it you'll have chunks to paste in your telegram plan

so what is the dutch past tense about anyway? i more or less grasp the french although it's intuitive for me, i was never real big on grammar rules

Provigil actually barely gets me through the day. My med nurse gave it to me bcz I have had mad malaise, apathy, feel like I'm trudging though molasses all the time, constantly tired & no energy. So after 3 days I feel like less of a corpse, which is a good endorsement. It got my bf completely alert tho.

speed is bad for the soul and worse for your grammar, pay no mind to these meth-freaks.

instead: try writing the paper in a different location, even if this means dragging shitloads of stuff with you everywhere. libraries are nice for this.

OTM, you will channel the sacred spirit of studying & productivity in a good library

go on a run

Exercise is definitely a good idea.

But in general when I have procrastination problems (and I do), the thing I've found most helpful is to be aware of why I'm really procrastinating - usually there's some reason you ultimately don't want to be doing the thing you need to do (sometimes it's as simple as a childish sort of "I do what I want" feeling that lingers in your mind). When you're aware of your motivations, you can kind of talk yourself down and say "Ok, but I need to do this paper, it's important for my academic career (or whatever), and if I do it it will get me one step further toward leading a better life (or whatever), and when I'm done with it THEN I'll reward myself by doing whatever I feel like."

Of course it's taken me some time to start to become aware of these motivations and to get them under control, so this may not help you in the next two days.

exercise is good, yes, but basically

you just have to do it

close web browser and do it
that is what i did all yesterday and all today except for a few minutes in the morning and for a bit this evening but it's all getting closed again v soon
say you're doing it for an hour, then stick to that, don't break the promise to yourself - this is all about feeling more confident in your abilities and first thing is to actually do what you know you need to do to make yourself feel happy, right?

then you can lay on the couch or go for a run or talk to a friend or internet for a bit and then back to work

i think the panic is kind of natural, but it's easy to lose it once you're into the work
seriously i am doing all this right now and have 30 pages (whittled out of a crazy-making amount of research, some of which i am half-boggled by) due friday and am feeling okay about it

yeah, i definitely panic all the time. here are my strategies (tho i must admit to having had a nervous breakdown so i haven't been in school in 7 months):

- take a nice long bath, or if you have access to one, go to the sauna. cleansing is always good.
- read something that is peripheral to your topic-- a lot of times, this can REALLY help clarify ideas about what you want to write.
- eat healthy, lots of fruit and protein. non-sugar carbs are a no-no, they make me and most other people sluggish in the brain.
- set goals and reward yourself. i used to say, "okay, i need to write two pages by -x time-, so if i do, i can go and smoke a joint and sit back for a bit."
- classical music. classical music. classical music. (it sounds stupid, but it does help focus).

i forgot:
- coffee
- cigarettes

Also you have to think about it as being in your control. If you sit around going "Why can't I focus? Why can't I focus?" you're actually sending yourself the message that it's out of your control, when in fact it is largely in your control (barring some kind of disorder, and then you should look into medication). You have to tell yourself that you can focus, that you want to focus, and that it's ultimately to help you succeed, and that you want and deserve to succeed, etc.

How does one stop the mind from wandering in these situations? No matter how much I apply study methods and planning to things like writing, my mind drifts off really easily. It does this reading, too. My attention span is shot to shit or something. I'm just so in my head, I cant shut it up. It is kind of frustrating that I often can't focus for very long.

^^ OTM

Yeah, I know the feeling. Getting in better shape helps. Being well-rested. Deep breathing helps. I'll bet meditation would help. But I do also think sometimes it's about motivation - because when that happens you're in a sense struggling with yourself. And you have to ask yourself why your struggling with yourself.

I dont think I want to ask myself that! heh.

Funny thing is, I can focus on things completely sometimes: a movie, a song/writing a song, reading intarwebs. I dont know if thats concentration so much as zoning out tho.

yoga, dudes, real yoga not that fake fitness stuff - everything you don't need tends to fall away (i mean, not all at once but it's happening to me and keeps being a surprise) - it is kinda weird but also good

i just wrote 2+ pages and am kinda blowing my own mind - that is reason enough to do your work, that feeling of whoa i AM in control (hurting2 otm) and i CAN think and DO things - the focus it is already there inside you. seriously. constantly remind self of this.

Yes, grit & 'i can do it' determination mantras are the only thing that get me through essays. Fine to take a smoke break or stare at monitor 'till my eyes blur as long as it gets me somewhere. But mostly not letting myself DO ANYTHING until I'm done. Except the one time I couldn't think of another goddamned thing to say & just started writing about the O'Jays' "Love Train," which I then erased once I regained direction.

essays are so so so horrible for me, I spend 10+ hours on two pages

I passed the AP Lit exam through a "ok what the hell I just need to write SOMETHING" attitude (though even that usually doesn't get me very far!)

:D
to abbott
xpost

essays are hard for most people! i have learned this from TAing - you need a good tutor/teacher really to help sort you out with how to do an outline, etc - and remember that you are totally capable!

i write a lot of totally hilarious meandering stuff and then i thank god for my editing experience allowing me to fix all that (and sometimes keep/alter it) before deadline b/c guys it is not the stuff of academie

also i got rid of my tv
and i get to go to a lake this wkend (incentive)

back to work

Only thing that focuses me (apart from provigil) is a deadline. So if an essay's going to take me three hours to write, I leave it until about 10pm on the night before it's due. That gets you typing. No point doing it any earlier anyway*

*NB This presumes having at least thought about the topic idly in the bath some days beforehand, so I'm not coming to it cold. Also having plundered google scholar for choice quotes if it's that kind of essay.

my US History teacher once asked me if I had problems at home (?!) because I failed every single in-class essay. I never got past the introductory paragraphs.

I passed the AP Lit exam through a "ok what the hell I just need to write SOMETHING" attitude

Hahah I think thats the only way I ever get writing done, is just by going OH FUCK IT and writing without thinking. Then am convinced it is shit, but everyone says it is really good!? WTF.

i write a lot of totally hilarious meandering stuff and then i thank god for my editing experience allowing me to fix all that
Actually, yes, this U+K. Write as much as you like, but then cut it to fuck afterwards.

hahaha yeah, thank goodness for computers/word processors, because I would never be able to write long papers with pen/typewriter. I just write random sentences and edit/move them till an essay is born.

Thats the best way to write anyway, its how I write everything!

And is possibly why my ILX posts are incomprehensible garbage!

Also having plundered google scholar for choice quotes if it's that kind of essay.

oh damn, i wish they'd had google scholar when i was in school! but also, i am good at the rrrobyn approach - once i sit down and write, i blabber endlessly, then have to whittle it away (which, i think, can actually be easier than sitting there trying to think of making everything brilliant all at once).

sometimes you need a change of scenery, too. i remember writing a grad school essay while sitting at my parents' house and i got nothing accomplished in like 5 hours. when i finally left and went to a coffee shop with laptop, i ended up a lot more relaxed and came up with some really good stuff!

I kind of wish I was back at uni/college so my brain would be forced to learn/work again. I miss my professional writing classes. I wrote some damn good stuff because I had to. I guess I need deadlines.

yeah, the focus thing is entirely within your control, as is finishing the paper. remember: it's just a fucking essay (and i say this as someone who has spent basically the last week "writing" a personal essay for medical school i.e. chin-stroking bullshit about why, like, medicine is totally important and shit which really means surfing the web and playing guitar).

yoga/meditation will help as long as you don't actually think about anything and just chill out. i used to think that smoking weed helped me focus (and it has, sometimes), but it usually just produces crazy talk. that might be okay, though, if you've got the time to slash and edit later.

also: do easy stuff first. if part of the reason that you can't focus is because you've got dirty dishes and laundry, then just do that shit, it's fucking easy and will take you like 15 minutes. clean your room. take care of all the not-that-onerous little tasks that clutter up yr head and then all that you'll have left is the essay. i am about a 10000x more productive when, say, there aren't clothes all over my room and i'm not vexed about the lack of groceries in my fridge.

That last point SO FUCKING OTM.

w/r/t weed-fueled crazy talk: not very pertinent to comparative grammar, i'm guessing, but alright for more exploratory/abstract shit. i had a 3500 word document of "ideas" (most of them whoah dude observations about the Warriors) that eventually got diced into a decent one-page essay. but the editing really ought to be done during, like, sober reflection

cleaning yr house/answering yr emails/doing yr errands is sooooo vital to getting shit don

and i cant speak for anyone else but pot is GREAT for post-work de-stress/fuckaround but mostly just makes me dull; i cant smoke in the middle of the day if i want to accomplish anything else. not that it stops me.

yeah, it took me about 25 years to figure that one out. college could have been a lot different if i'd been less of a slob

xp otm. it's best when it's a treat, and all you've got to do is slap on some headphones or watch a movie, guilt-free

but fuck guilt anyway: it's just school. you've written papers before, you'll write more, you know what you're doing. just write a terrible first draft, read it out loud in the bathroom or something and circle all the parts that just sound totally embarrassing.

guilt and self-loathing is dumb! i have experience in this! and all my experience points to: nooo!

haha yeah anything that makes you cringe, you must delete

and be glad you're not surrounded by literally piles of physical and digital research gathered over a few years. getting past being overwhelmed to writing 30 pages of some kind of sense is/was actually easier than expected. (of course, i shoulda done this 2 years ago but the past is the past and i got other, mostly unrelated, stuff done then anyway, plus no one actually cares in the end except for you - not as harsh as it sounds (well, it sounded harsh to me b/c i'm like that sometimes) b/c your happiness is ultimately most important, i.e., oxygen-mask on plane analogy - put yours on first, then see to others)

w/r/t weed: really, really depends on the topic and one's relationship to weed. weed-smoking at the beginning of a project really helps me because it helps my mind wander through ideas, hone in those that i think are pertinent, and write little notes about them.

deadlines are really the best. i had my first 'deadline', non-school writing assignment recently (it was a show review for a magazine). granted, it wasn't like writing a term paper, but i started writing it an hour before it was due. and it turned out great-- well, great enough for them to keep giving me assignments.