This week for me, my parents have been away so it has been up to me to be responsible and take care of my sister and make sure everything is in order. And I think I've been doing a good job... All the laundry is done, the dishes are done, the counters are clean, there are vegetables in the fridge and we aren't surviving on pizza or microwave dinners. I'm pretty proud of myself.... except I'm not. For me, it's like the triangle of three and you can pick two with my options being:
1.) Properly be responsible while everyone is away 2.) Be on top of my school work 3.) Friends/Health responsibilities. Any guesses which I picked? I don't know. The thing is, I've done the whole mental breakdown thing and not taken care of myself and picked 1 & 2 before and last time I did it ended in me driving off a cliff. So what the heck do I do? I don't think there is a good answer lol. This morning I packed all of the food for my sister to take to my grandfathers, so when I went to eat something... there was no food. (That wasn't packed anyway. ) All that was in the cupboard was pancakes. So I just made pancakes, with lemon juice and sugar because if one is going to have pancakes, you gotta do it right. But then I had to run off again, so I scrapped the sugar and lemon off and ran out the door. When I pulled my pancakes out later, they just weren't good. My lemon pancakes were just... cold plain pancakes. And it wasn't pleasant. It kinda got me thinking, maybe life isn't a pick two. Even though it may seem like you can only pick two things in your triangle to fulfill, for one's life to be fulfilled, one needs to find a way to pick all three. Because if you don't, you end up with plain, cold, slightly soggy, tart lemon pancakes. And that isn't what anyone wants. I don't know how to do everything, I think I'm always going to be an avid procrastinator. But one thing I do know is that I'm not going to sacrifice having awesome pancakes just to get to class, I'd rather procrastinate going and have my lemon pancakes. So all in all, don't try to learn from me.
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One of the things about procrastination that isn't acknowledged as much as it should be is just how bad it really feels. We joke about it a lot. But students, particularly, have brought to my attention just how debilitating and confidence-destroying procrastination actually can be.
Professors and students face common obstacles when it comes to procrastination. We're busy during the week with our classes: preparation, readings, studying and tests. Evenings and weekends are usually our main times to get writing done. But evenings and weekends are also when life interferes. We have to catch up on sleep, laundry, buying groceries, paying bills, getting some exercise, maybe having fun even (!) We have relationships with family and friends that we want and need to tend to. And meanwhile, some deadline for an essay or other writing task looms over us. So we put it off. Initially, it feels good to put it off. Who wouldn't rather put off writing an essay to watch another episode of Tidying Up? (Marie Kondo springing onto the screen, inspiring us with visions of orderly lives?) Okay, maybe Marie Kondo might be where you end up after you've burned through all the episodes of Queer Eye, or whatever it is you really want to watch. Or who wouldn't rather go skiing? Or drive to Vancouver for the weekend? And you can justify it, because after all you've been working too hard, and leisure time and exercise are important for your mental health. You make those choices, and, on the surface, you may feel pretty good about it. The problem comes when the weekend is over. For me, that's when I realize that I've wasted my window of opportunity to get something done. That's when I start to feel anxiety creeping in. And if I'm honest, I realize, too, that the anxiety has been there all weekend. It's hung over me like a bad smell from something left in the fridge too long, and all my diversions, my joy, has been subtly tainted by it. I haven't really been able to relax. I've felt this low-grade stress, been aware of this nagging inner voice that's saying, yeah I know you want to go skiing and I know you need the exercise, but actually you need even more to get your writing done. This weekend brought that feeling home to me very vividly. I had a writing task I needed to complete. I really couldn't put it off any more. So I had to focus. I had to put aside my immediate desires to do all the other things that were beckoning me. And what I felt? It wasn't annoyance or frustration. It was just sweet relief. It felt so good to stop putting it off. I admit that taking that first step is easier said than done. I recently read about a method that might help you, so I'll share it here. It's called the 10-minute trick. I read about it on a website by a woman named Dr. Rebecca Stafford and she says she used it to finish writing her Ph. D. thesis. She has quite a bit to say about procrastination. (She calls herself Dr. Habit). The basic idea is that you work in ten-minute increments, then reward yourself. Students have told me stories about being so disabled by procrastination, they end up not handing in final assignments, and therefore failing courses. Ironically, it's sometimes fear of failure, they say, that makes them procrastinate. I know that feeling too. It's not just that we'd rather do something else. It's that we'd rather do something else where there is no risk of failure. |
OC faculty, staff & studentsWe made this space available to share our sometimes sorry, sometimes heroic, stories of procrastination. Please scroll down to read all the entries. To submit, send your entry to [email protected] Archives
November 2021
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