How to stop procrastinating

[Lightmeow]

So, I procrastinate a lot, and it can get very bad, and I am traditionally in a state of constant last minute panic. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I should tell my self not to.

Thanks

[Phi for All]

I'll tell you tomorrow.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

I use this when I should be working:

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/

 

There are similar extensions for Chrome. Block yourself from all the interesting websites and you might find that work is the most appealing thing to do.

 

For the first few weeks I found myself visiting progressively more and more boring websites as I blocked myself from the good ones, until eventually it just wasn't worth the effort and I got work done instead.

[Lightmeow]

I'll tell you tomorrow.

You got me there...

 

I use this when I should be working:

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/leechblock/

 

There are similar extensions for Chrome. Block yourself from all the interesting websites and you might find that work is the most appealing thing to do.

 

For the first few weeks I found myself visiting progressively more and more boring websites as I blocked myself from the good ones, until eventually it just wasn't worth the effort and I got work done instead.

I was talking in general.

 

Like last night, I promised myself that I would do my math when I woke up, but somehow I justified a reason for not doing it. I did it during break, and got a 100 on it, so that justified my opinion even more. But there is somethings, like I "forgot" to study for my English vocab test, and I know I totally failed it. And midterms are coming up and I have to know 80 old english words that I never have even used that are on average 20 letters long, and don't sound like how they are said.

[Phi for All]

Thou canst beseech me anon.

[hypervalent_iodine]

I've learned never to promise myself that I'll do something, 'when I wake up,' because invariably I will wake up and my bed will be even more comfortable than it was when I went to sleep and sleep will seem like an infinitely better thing to do. One day I hope to reverse my attitudes in the morning vs. when I am supposed to go to sleep.

 

I am terrible at procrastinating. Most of my assignment work at uni was done on the occasional wave of motivation and inspiration. I got a tonne of work done during those hours, but they weren't as often as they should have been. During my honours year I managed to surprise myself by having my research proposal and thesis written weeks in advance of their due date. I think the major difference for me was that I was genuinely interested in what I was doing and found it much easier to want to research and write about it, whereas a large portion of my undergraduate coursework was not very interesting for me. During my years in high school I was not allowed access to the internet or simply didn't have it, TV was restricted (and not appealing to me anyway) and I didn't have a phone that I actually used until my final year. I really didn't have anything better to do except read (which I did a lot of) and all of my work was done well ahead of time as a result. Of course, this doesn't help you at all since you clearly do have access to these things and honestly, nothing I say *could* really help you (especially as far as English is concerned), since I haven't managed to figure out how to fix it yet either. Maybe next week.

[pears]

When I was in school I was a terrible procrastinator and left all my major homework assignments to the last minute, often working until 4am to get them done. This was a terrible way to work, reflected in my results and I could have done a lot better than just scraping by as I was doing.

 

I went to university a little later than most, in my early twenties, having worked in office jobs for three years. At university I was much more organised, did my work on time and got practically straight As. I don't know if I learned organisational skills on the job or if I was just a bit more mature by then (I suspect it was both).

 

I'm very much a believer in habit. I think we can develop good or bad habits, and the more we behave in a certain way the more we entrench those habits. I think working in offices got me into the habit of getting things done on time so time management really was second nature to me by then.

 

Breaking bad habits and devloping good ones takes a little effort but its certainly achievable. I think the key really is the thoughts you have about the task you want to achieve. Instead of sitting down and thinking, I must do X, on I'll just do Y first, oh bother now it's late, I'll do X tomorrow. Instead say I must do X, right let's do X and don't let Y even come into your head. Also they say visualizung yourself doing something makes you more likely to do it. I don't know the science behind that but have certainly found it's true for me. If I know I ought to be mopping the floor and I'm sitting down watching TV, sometime all I need to do is tell myself to do it, then picture myself doing it, and then I'm doing it.

 

Also planning in advance can help. If you set aside time (maybe a day or two ahead) to do the task, and keep thinking to yourself, right wednedsday evening before dinner (or whatever) is the time I'm going to do X, then you will have reinforced the idea in your own mind and it may help you to stick to it.

 

Or you could create a timetable for yourslef and keep reinforcing in your mind the items in it. Changing ingrained behaviour won't happen overnight but hopefully you can take small steps to get where you want to be.

 

Good luck

[Delta1212]

The most effective thing I ever did to prevent myself from procrastinating? Find something else I needed to do but didn't want to, and use doing the work I needed to get done as an excuse to avoid doing the other work I needed to get done.

 

I figured that procrastination was an on-going issue that I had trouble beating, so I might as well stop fighting it, plan that I was definitely going to procrastinate and just procrastinate productively.

[pears]

The most effective thing I ever did to prevent myself from procrastinating? Find something else I needed to do but didn't want to, and use doing the work I needed to get done as an excuse to avoid doing the other work I needed to get done.

 

I figured that procrastination was an on-going issue that I had trouble beating, so I might as well stop fighting it, plan that I was definitely going to procrastinate and just procrastinate productively.

 

Haha great strategy. I always found my room becoming cleaner than ever round exam time and I never used to like cleaning!

[Ophiolite]

I've been meaning to open and read this thread for almost a week now. Well, at least I've opened it. I'll read it later.

[Prometheus]

I'm glad to see i'm not the only one with this problem. My solution has been to leave my room and going to libraries to study. Not only are there less distractions around (although still too many), i find the ritual of travelling to a place of learning gears my mind a little more to the task at hand.

[Phi for All]

Set your calendar ahead by a week. That will be/has been/is working for me.

[Dekan]

Procrastination may be a quintessentially human characteristic. It sets us apart from the lower animals. They react to situations immediately, by taking the necessary actions.

 

Only humans have the power to delay taking these actions, out of a spirit of what might be called conscious perversity.

 

In this context, I recommend study of E.A. Poe's essay "The Imp of Pervesity". Naturally this must be read in its entirety to get the full value of what it offers, but here's an excerpt:

 

"We have a task before us which must be speedily performed. We know that it will be ruinous to make delay. The most important crisis of our life calls, trumpet-tongued, for immediate energy and action. We glow, we are consumed with eagerness to commence the work, with anticipation of whose glorious result our whole souls are on fire. It must, it shall be undertaken today, and yet we put it off until tomorrow; and why?

 

There is no answer, except that we feel perverse, using the word with no comprehension of the principle. Tomorrow arrives, and with it a more impatient anxiety to do our duty, but with this very increase of anxiety arrives, also, a nameless, a positively fearful, because unfathomable, craving for delay.

 

This craving gathers strength as the moments fly. The last hour for action is at hand.. We tremble with the violence of the conflict within us - of the definite with the indefinite - of the substance with the shadow. But if the conflict have proceeded thus far, it is the shadow which prevails - we struggle in vain.

 

The clock strikes, and is the knell of our welfare. At the same time, it is the chanticleer-note to the ghost that has so long overawed us. It flies - it disappears - we are free. The old energy returns. We will labour now. Alas, it is too late!"

 

Making allowances for the 19th Century melodramatic style, don't Poe's words resonate today?