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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Being in sweatpants every day, all day long, is really not that cool. I have to admit that there have been many mornings in my past, many 6:45 a.m.s, when I've longed to go back to bed with a cup of tea and just skip the day ahead. I pictured my cat asleep at my feet, a long, non-work-related book in my hands, occasional naps as the sun pours in my window. There have been days in the past when I didn't feel like getting dressed in my "public" clothes and going out to face the world. Staying home seemed like it would be a such a luxury.
Be careful what you wish for, they say. Now, with days stretching ahead of me and no real end in sight, I'm finding it hard to focus. If ever there were reasons to procrastinate before, as a student said to me earlier (online of course), now it seems like it's not just a matter of not feeling like doing work -- the world is distracting in a truly unprecedented way. If I'm not worrying about the fact that we have no bleach in our house (a product I never use normally) to disinfect the various surfaces we're supposed to disinfect, and no stores seem to have any in stock, I'm obsessively checking how many new Covid-19 cases there are in Italy and India, where I have friends, or obsessively checking who has more cases, BC or Ontario. But over the last couple of days, I'm finding it a bit easier to focus. I'm not allowing myself to check the news every hour. I'm limiting it to twice a day (and trying for once). So other than telling you that I feel your procrastination pain, I can offer these few tips: 1) Sign into your course on Moodle, just to have a look. Tell yourself you'll just spend ten minutes. See what your profs and others have posted, even if you don't read through it all right now. 2) Pick one thing to work on at a time. The many assignments and responsibilities you have may seem over-whelming. Without the structure of a class to put it all in order, it may feel pretty daunting. (I'm only telling you what I feel!) Try working on one assignment for three ten-minute intervals. Take out your notes, read over the assignment, jot down some ideas. 3) Ask a question. If you find yourself slightly confused or even just stuck about how to approach an assignment, email your prof. Ask anything, even "I'm having trouble knowing where to start..." 4) Go for a walk (or do some other physical activity you like, preferably outside). First look at the assignment you want to work on. Read it over. Jot down any thoughts. Then put it aside and go outside. Do something physical that doesn't require your mind (ie. no videos, talking, or complex games) I call this creative procrastination. You're procrastinating, but because you've read over your assignment, it's in your unconscious mind, which quietly works behind the scenes to give you ideas. Charles Darwin used walks to generate ideas. It might work for you, too. Lastly, know that we are all in this together. We will once again put on our "outdoor" pants and get back to work. We'll get through this. Please share your comments & suggestions for getting work done and/or your struggles with it. I have been trying to think of a time where procrastination has affected me, and I do have many of those times, but I'll write them down later. I swear.
Procrastination is probably one of the most common challenges for college students -- I mean human beings -- so if you’re wondering how to overcome it, you’re not alone. I could encourage you to examine what it is that you’re avoiding, or which challenging emotions you’re trying to get away from, when you pick up your phone or start playing a video game instead of doing your homework. And that might be helpful. But if you’re reading this to figure out how to stop procrastinating NOW? My best advice is to look at the image below and get yourself over the “action line”, which is the surest way to reduce any pain and stress associated with procrastination. How, you might ask? Do something. Don’t wait until you feel like doing it – simply start now. Make a to-do list for your assignment. Break it down into small tasks, the smaller the better, and then start with one task and check it off. Then the next, and then the next. Before you know it, the pain of procrastination will be behind you and you’ll be building up momentum and confidence. Photo credit: https://jamesclear.com/procrastination
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. 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. Lucy and Vayda here.
It's T- minus 2 hours until we’re attending the long night against procrastination. Shout out to Francie for telling us several times, since October, about the blog post for this event and we both were so excited to write it. However up until this morning we had basically given up on trying to even write anything because let's face it, we’re just a mess. But then we’re sitting here at like 6:45 pm, the night of, not doing anything because we’re going to this thing where we’ll do our work, in theory….. So we decided to do this together. :) Procrastination. What a word. What does it mean to you? Usually everyone can agree we’ve all dealt with it. Listen, we’ve all been hovering over our laptops and books at 9 pm having planned the whole evening to write a paper, that’s due at 12 am, but all we’ve got is a thesis. Here’s how we’ve experienced procrastination. Lucy: So It’s Thursday night, and I’ve been blessed with no classes on Fridays, so my weekend starts now. Every Thursday I make the plan. You know the plan. To do all my work, rewrite all my notes, finish my papers, and organize everything. It’s a good plan. But then I get a notification, from Netflix, recommending a Christmas movie they just released, and I'm thinking, I can’t just ignore that. So one Christmas movie turns into another, and I'm suddenly down this rabbit hole of cheesy, borderline awful movies. But that’s just Thursday night. I have three more days to get it together. You’d think somewhere in those days I’d pick up one of those textbooks I spent all my money on, but instead, I realize my room is messy. Or my car is dirty, or my bed is too comfy to leave. Plus every Sunday morning my family and I usually go for a hike. Afterwards my blood's pumping, and my brain is cracked out from those endorphins, which makes it probably a perfect time to finally start on those assignments right? I know it is, my family knows it is, and yet, I end up sorting through old family pictures or something unproductive and unnecessary. Then I’ll get a message from Vayda, usually around 7 pm Sunday night, she asks me how I'm doing, and if I I’ve done everything I planned to do. I send back, “I’ll try again next weekend.” but I never do. Vayda: After a very long Sociology class on a Monday morning at 8 AM, I walk out of class and start running in the -1c weather to my vehicle usually parked in the very back row. Now don’t get me wrong, I often tell myself to leave my house very early to get a decent parking spot so it doesn’t feel like I’m running a marathon to get to every class. But I often leave so it gives me enough time to roll up at 8 am. Half the time I’m in bed and it’s 7 am and I have to leave in 20 mins and usually lying in bed versus getting a decent parking spot always takes the win. This is an EVERYDAY occurrence where I am walking (running) to my car and I hop in and see the disgusting mess of what almost looks like my room. For some reason, I like to leave everything in my car and let it pile up…. I will let it sit there for days, weeks, months and some of my stuff has been living in the car for probably a year. One day Lucy jumps in my car and can’t help but mention the mess that has taken over. I basically tell her to “ignore it.” After the multiple times of me telling Lucy to just “ignore it” she was fed up. Lucy forced me to drive all the way to Walmart; we picked up a bunch of cleaning tools. We then gave my car a beautiful soak, leaving her with a sparkly finish. We ripped back to Lucy’s house where she tore my car apart. Literally tearing everything apart. She was throwing things left, right and center and I just felt so vulnerable in this position. After a devastating hour of Lucy ripping my car and I apart, I felt a tad better. Being able to scrub and sanitize my car, I felt some relief and lightheartedness. Many of us can say they have experienced a lot of assignments, homework and tests that are just being thrown at you. Like my car, I tend to see all those things and just shove it away, and then all of it just piles up and I sometimes, actually almost always forget about it. We would just like to thank OC for putting together this evening/morning to potentially help us tackle our bad habits, especially during this difficult month. Shout out to some of our professors who made it down to offer their expertise for us. We definitely need it. Who knows, we might actually get some things done or………… I am known in my family for procrastinating; it was a common occurrence in my early school years. I would always go to my parents with some assignment or other to ask for help. It got to the point my dad would see me coming and ask, “Is it due tomorrow?”, and it always was. I would love to say that I learnt my lesson and did my homework with time to spare but to be honest, I just got better at hiding my panic.
My most recent exploits take the cake though. I will do almost anything other than my homework, including cleaning the bathroom. My mom doesn’t seem to mind my new homework diversion technique. This week I was at a loss as to what needed to be done around the house, then it dawned on me, the perfect solution! My mom and I live in an RV year-round, so we need to make sure cold air doesn’t get in. What is more important, being warm for the winter or school work? My decision was made to insulate the RV. In order to achieve my goal, I had to climb on top of the trailer. It’s not very tall, maybe 12 or 13 feet and it is pretty easy to get up. None of this mattered when I suddenly rediscovered my fear of heights! I am twelve feet off the ground and there is an alarming lack of guard rails to keep me from falling to my death. This was no time to panic though; there was work to be done. Getting down was another problem I was not ready to address. I had no idea how dirty the roof was. If I did, I certainly wouldn’t have worn my good jeans. It is also quite icy up there which was a bit of a shock, especially when I had to lay directly on the ice in order to get the insulation in the right place. An hour later, covered in dirt from crawling around on my hands and knees, frozen to the bone, I am finally finished. Now comes the hard part. I have to get down. Everything looked so easy from the ground. A million thoughts race through my mind as I attempt to maneuver my way to the ground. “Why do they make these ladders so tiny?” “What the hell was I thinking?” And my favourite, “I should have just done the essay!” I don’t know if this has cured me of my procrastinating tendencies, but I will definitely choose my diversions a lot more carefully from now on. NOTE: Micaela was not harmed in the writing of this blog. Procrastination. What a woeful time it is to be alive, browsing the internet while the acrid stench of unfinished or not-even started essays fill the nostrils. It isn't our fault, really. It's the allure of the web, aptly named as it sticks our focus into a seemingly endless array of data strands, webbing composed of memes, blog posts, and interesting research on a topic completely unrelated to your course. It feels wonderful. In the way that people describe drowning. You know it's not a great place to be but there's no way to fight it, and it doesn't feel too bad either. Water consumes and envelops. Darkness sets in. Except for one little octopus. Your pet octopus, in fact, that you truly care about, who couldn't survive without you. Yes, this refers to your unfinished work. Ain't that cute.
Sooner or later, the creature extends an inky black tendril for attention, slapping you across the face, begging to be acknowledged. Anyone with a shred of empathy for themselves or little tentacled fellows will reach out and be dragged back to reality. The reality of living as the legal guardian of an octopus. Back to the non-metaphor, your work will suddenly exist again and doing it is very much the right thing to do. Some physically recoil at the imposing task at hand, checking their phone reflexively for comfort. Others let loose a jovial but nihilistic chuckle before sobbing internally. "GET TO WORK", your mind screams, causing your vision to go fuzzy and lose focus on the infinitely interesting screen. "Just one more video", you reply, realizing that this is the part where everyone fails. After just realizing that you can't swim, the diving board somehow remains appealing. This is the part that requires some intervention. Presenting: The Long Night Against Procrastination. Also known as The Second Most Appreciated Event in the College Library After the One With Cookies, this is a very well timed last resort effort to get things done. There's support in every direction, peers to review every other direction, and a sizable collection of actual, physical, real books. There's also some psychology built into why the event lasts until two in the morning, which is that everyone's standards drastically lower when tired, so the perfectionist blockade drops, allowing spontaneous fast writing. Reviewing after a decent rest is recommended but not necessary. Getting something done will always surpass nothing, and this event lets you do it surrounded by really cool people who are also struggling though life! Maybe you'll meet friends, maybe you already have friends! All I know is that this Thursday night is going to lead many people to the shore. Today has been a flop. Sure, maybe 'flop' isn't a great word, but it is perfect for describing the sheer amount of unproductivity that has taken place on this day. I'm currently sitting in my third Starbucks of the day, drinking my fifth cup of 'Wellness Rev Up Black, Oolong and Green Tea Fusion' that's designed to boost productivity of the day: with all of my tabs and documents open to start working on my English thesis presentation, (Hi Francie :\ ) and the most I've done is re-read my original source and create a rough idea of what my thesis will possibly be about.
Though I find many excuses to procrastinate, my most common one happens to be: 'Oh I'll just do this quickly and then jump into my work'. If I'm eating a sandwich, I'll just watch an episode of TV whilst doing so, continuing watching after my sandwich crumbs are dry and crusty. Or my friends will start blowing up my phone and my brain tells me that 'I must respond as I am available'. The excuse that I find the funniest happens to be along the lines of, 'OH MAN, I should try to complete all the islands in Poptropica because I haven't played that game since I was 8 and OBVIOUSLY I'll be able to do it quickly and be covered in those virtual gold medals because I'm THE BEST!'. (Does anyone else remember Poptropica? haha :P). I have written exactly zero words in my presentation document, but I am up to season four in my quest of re-watching Friends. I started three days ago.... Because, why start something today when I can have a great and relaxing day and start t-minus 18hrs before the due date on an essay that I have done no research for??? (Hi again Francie, DEFINITELY NOT the first essay I handed into you...) Yes, clearly I am a procrastinating mess, but I get away with it because I always manage to hit that due date even if I haven't slept in 36hrs or arrive in class an hour late. And with my eyes tired, napping on my arms during class, I always do get just a little bit of satisfaction of finishing despite my 'being a complete sh*t person and actually the worst' (my own words). Because there's always that small bit of your brain that feels satisfaction when something is done: especially in a race against time. I'd like to think I'm slowly getting better... I've started using timers, stopping and starting frequently as to give my brain required breaks and to give myself the pleasure of still partaking in whatever my brain came up with that day. But, here I am, sitting in the third Starbucks I've been in today, (in an effort to change my environment to work harder and not be distracted), my fifth cup of tea nearly empty, and zero words written in my thesis presentation document. Clearly, today has been a flop. |
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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