A student in my class today was talking about trying to use a scheduling app to help her complete her essay in manageable steps. It's a good idea. But in her case, each time one of those reminders popped up that told her she'd missed another deadline for some step in her assignment, she felt like a failure.
I can relate to that. I keep a daily journal about my writing, and I'm pretty good about writing in it regularly, and using it to take stock of where I'm at in a writing project. Sometimes I'll make myself a schedule for the week with plans to complete a certain number of pages or a chapter by the end of the week. And too often, the week passes without me having done the planned work, and the following week, I'm making the same commitments all over again. I'm here to tell you that's okay. If you fail to complete what you'd planned, put it behind you and start again. I've published four books with a fifth due for publication next fall and I'm working on a sixth. I procrastinate all the time. But I still get work done. So stop beating yourself up and start again. According to a 2019 New York Times article, "there’s an entire body of research dedicated to the ruminative, self-blaming thoughts many of us tend to have in the wake of procrastination, which are known as 'procrastinatory cognitions.' The thoughts we have about procrastination typically exacerbate our distress and stress, which contribute to further procrastination." Most of us who procrastinate recognize the truth in that. Apparently forgiving ourselves and having some compassion about the reasons we procrastinate can help. Just because we've procrastinated in the past, does not mean we're destined to fail at future tasks. I also believe that not all procrastination is bad. If we take the time to think carefully about why we're putting something off, we may recognize that we're unsure about our approach. A simple solution might be to text a fellow classmate or talk to your prof after class (or send an email). We also might not be ready, for example, to write a particular essay. Students sometimes say, I have no idea what I'm going to write about for this essay. If that's why you haven't started, maybe the solution is to do some research or more reading. Maybe you need to take a pen and jot down some random ideas. One other reason I often see at the root of my own and other people's procrastination is a fear of, maybe not outright failure, but under-performing. Most students have pretty high expectations for themselves. I was like that myself as a student. But I think university should be (at least partly) about enjoying what you're doing. Think about what you could do that would make you enjoy your task more. Can you pick a topic that genuinely interests you or about which you genuinely have something you want to say? Then the focus isn't so much on the grade you get. It's on the process of doing the work. Some of my best undergrad essays, in my opinion, were ones that I didn't get an A for. They were the ones where I felt passionate about my argument, where I got lost in interesting research, where I followed an argument that no one else had thought of. My execution wasn't perfect, but I can honestly say I had fun writing them. My point is to try not to focus on future outcomes or past "failures". If you've put something off for three days, today is a new day. Quit wasting time being angry with yourself. Start again.
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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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