I wasn’t really prepared for the independence of college life. In high school, we often had time to start (and even finish) our assignments in class. At home, my parents would make sure I finished homework before I did anything social. This guidance vanished when I moved away for school and I tasted something new – freedom. Freedom to decide when I wanted to work on my school assignments… or not. I was a pretty persistent procrastinator, and some of those behaviors have stayed with me to this day. I had a breakthrough when I recognized the patterns in my procrastination. Sometimes, a big project can seem daunting and difficult to accomplish. Even if at first it seems impossible, it makes it much easier to tackle if you break it up into smaller steps. This might not be true for everyone, but I find that the tasks (big and small) that I put off most frequently are those that require preliminary steps that I don’t like doing, don’t know how to do, or don’t have the tools to do. My analogy for this is my Christmas tree. I was pretty proud of myself when I had packed away the decorations, moved the tree outside to my deck, and vacuumed up all the needles from the floor before the first week of January was out. Now, it is halfway through March and the dead tree is still on my deck. The easiest first step would have been to look up who was doing Christmas tree pick-ups. I didn’t do that right away, so I missed the opportunity to book an appointment and have my tree picked up. At this point, I can put it in a yard waste bag and set that out to be picked up. The first step now requires a tool (a pair of clippers or a small saw), which I don’t have, to cut it up and put it in the bag. When the first step is one you don’t want to do or don’t have the tools to do, it can be limiting. My necessary tool is literal – a pair of clippers or a saw. Yours might be learning how to write a thesis statement, gather research on your topic, or write an outline for an essay. Whatever tools/skills you need, there are people around you who can help you acquire them. Get what you need to do that first step, and you’re on your way. Hopefully, I can take my own advice and this tree will be off my deck this weekend! ;)
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Procrastination is a normal part of human life – we’re wired to seek out pleasure and comfort, so many of us often put off that which is not pleasurable or comfortable.
What I’ve noticed, though, is that sometimes procrastination builds up into something bigger than itself – something I think of as a big negative snowball. What started out as everyday procrastination somehow takes on layers of shame and guilt and leads to even more procrastination. Over the years, I’ve seen many students dealing with this kind of negative snowball. Sometimes it gets so big that they start to avoid any reminders of what they’ve been procrastinating on and some even stop attending class altogether. I believe that in situations like that, it’s important for students to acknowledge that shame is getting in the way and to develop their shame resilience in order to get back to the tasks they have been putting off. To illustrate the negative snowball effect and how to overcome it, let me tell you about that time I put off going to the dentist. A few years ago, I found myself delaying my appointment because I was worried about the cost. And then before I knew it, 2.5 years had gone by, even though it’s important to me to take care of my health. The logical thing would be to make an appointment and get my teeth looked after. But by that point, I had been procrastinating for so long that a thick layer of shame had formed around this fact, and the shame led me to procrastinate even more. If you can see that shame is contributing to your cycle of procrastination, you may want to work on your shame resilience. Dr. Brené Brown, a research professor and author who studies shame and human connection, offers us a simple four-step process (which doesn’t always happen in this order) for shame resilience:
The 3-minute video in this link shows Dr. Brown explaining this process to Oprah Winfrey: http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/brene-brown-on-the-3-things-you-can-do-to-stop-a-shame-spiral-video Here’s how my shame resilience process looked. Eventually I realized that what was keeping me stuck was shame (step 1). Next I reached out to a close friend (step 3) and told her how ashamed I felt (step 4), and that I was judging myself for not having been to the dentist in so long. Once I had told my friend the story of my dental shame, the story felt lighter and it became easier to be gentle with myself about what had happened (step 2). Having developed my shame resilience, I finally felt able to book an appointment, tell my hygienist the truth about how long I had procrastinated on my dental health (step 4 again), and move out of my negative snowball. I’m happy to report that my teeth feel great now and I’ve moved on to putting off my next eye appointment. It doesn't matter if you give me two days, two weeks, two months or two years to do something; I will always leave it until the last minute. Usually the last day. Or more specifically, the last night. I always tell myself that I will start whatever I have to do early, so as to give myself more time and to reduce my stress about it. I always say that if I do this thing early, I can watch TV or read a book or do something fun after and I won't feel guilty about procrastinating. However, every time, without fail, I do the fun thing first, and leave the work until the very end. This system does not work for me. It makes me stressed and it causes me to lose sleep. I never get as much studying done or as much revision of a project done as I would like to because I procrastinate. I hope one day I can fix this system and procrastination will cause me no more frustration. !!!
6:30 PM- Let us Begin 10:00 PM- Title Page is Done 3:00 AM- OH DEAR GOD NO Procrastination, everyone does it. Some of us more than others. It happens in all aspects of our lives. At work, I always try to be on top of everything as much as possible, as it can affect others. But in the rest of life, it is laughable, even though to most people I appear to be very organized and on top of everything. Do you ever put off homework because you just have to clean the toilet? Come on, no one likes to clean the bathroom, but you know you are procrastinating big time when that becomes your top priority. Personally, my favorite is when I will willingly do something that I have been procrastinating about doing for weeks, or longer, because I’d rather do that than what I am supposed to be doing. So this month, I was encouraged to start a 30-day challenge of my choice. The timing seemed just too perfect. Therefore, I chose to do one thing each day that I have been procrastinating about. It can be something small or something big, but I have to do one thing that I just need to cross off my list. Wish me luck! Hope you aren’t procrastinating about your homework.
As a college counsellor, I hear a lot about procrastination. I often hear students say that they find themselves procrastinating because the subject matter isn’t interesting, meaningful or motivating for them.
It makes sense that if you feel motivated to do something, you will be less likely to procrastinate. Motivation might come about because you love the course or are passionate about the topic, but let’s face it: this is often NOT the case. And if it’s not, I’ve noticed that students tend to struggle to stay motivated and on task. So, how can you stay motivated to work on an assignment (or study for an exam) if you don’t feel particularly stimulated or motivated by the material itself? Rather than giving up and going back to procrastinating, I suggest that you find a way to make the task at hand meaningful to YOU in some way. To do this, it often helps to shift your focus, like you would a camera lens – either further into the bigger picture or closer up, to the finer details. A bigger picture shift might entail reminding yourself of why you are a student in the first place. What are the longer term goals you are working towards? For example, is there a program you’re planning to apply for, or a career goal you’re hoping to obtain? A finer detail shift might entail motivating yourself with something more immediate. Maybe it means focusing on the great feeling you’ll have once you have completed this assignment, or the reward you’ll give yourself for handing it in (this doesn’t need to be anything big or expensive! For example, you could plan a short break from studying, get together with a friend, or treat yourself to a yoga class.) Another potential motivator is focusing on the skills and qualities you want to develop. For instance, if you’re working on an essay, you could particularly focus on honing your research or writing skills, or even just building your confidence as a student. If you’re supposed to be working on an assignment and you find yourself asking ‘Why am I doing this?’, zooming out to the big picture and connecting with your goals and dreams can sometimes help to provide an answer to that question, remind you that you’re taking a step in the right direction, and boost motivation to boot. By the same token, zooming in to a shorter term goal can help to break down the ongoing-ness of being a student to help you see the progress that you’re making with each assignment you work through. I think of procrastination in the same way I think of having a fight with your lover. It can be interesting on its own, but is more compelling as an indicator of deeper processes that give rise to it. For instance, procrastination can signify difficulty letting go of something that is not perfect. Somewhat ironically, the drive to be perfect will earn you zero on an assignment because you think your work is not good enough. Whatever you’ve produced, it is likely worth more than a zero, but then procrastination is not the product of rational thinking. Sometimes procrastination is the product of emotions like anxiety (not knowing how to start) or boredom (“I’d really rather be snapchatting”). Procrastination could reflect a power struggle or assertion of independence in a situation where you don’t feel autonomous (“I’ll start the assignment when I damn well please”) or easily rationalized as a by-product of overscheduling (“I have to work 4 hours a day while taking a full course load”). Perhaps you need to procrastinate to increase your sense of urgency and focus. Many adjectives could be used to describe our assignments, but “exciting” is usually not one of them, so procrastination could inject that missing element. The question I ask myself is whether my procrastination is functional – does it ultimately help me learn something about the task and/or about myself? Do I own up to procrastinating when I am doing it and am I open to what it tells me? Jessica Hinche has said “the work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.” It may also be that procrastination can make any type of work feel more exciting, urgent, and more like the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.
A student puts off writing a paper until the night before due date, and produces a dud. The problem, the professor suggests, is procrastination, and for this a commonsense fix exists: better time management. Maybe more jumping jacks and less social media, or something like that. Off the student goes. But what's this? The next paper isn't the succulent masterpiece the professor expected either. In fact it's worse than the first one, and on top of that the student is now spending time on the question of time management, or so he says.
Could there be another explanation? I propose this: the student - assuming that he has time - spends it on things that matter to him, and right now the paper isn't one of them. And for us professors it is probably better fun to pathologize students' time management than to recognize just how limited the appeal of our assignments is. So, if the idea of procrastination is a red herring to distract from the fact that there are things we do not like and will always put off, then the trick is to live so as to minimize them. -Jarkko Jalava This is a blog I wrote for my English 100 students last semester. I was telling them about the project I'd been putting off for a while. I'd learned sometime in July that the anthology I was guest editing needed an introduction and it needed to be done by November. But not just the kind of introduction I can whip up in an afternoon -- a page and a half of enthusiasm for the writers included in the anthology. This was supposed to be 14-15 pages and include a literature review of what has been done in the field so far and an explanation of how this collection contributed something new. My first reaction was panic. Panic is a recurring emotion when I write, scattered at various points in my writing process. Often it comes in the form of profound doubt at the quality of what I've spent hours and hours working on. Never mind that I've published three books, I think. They'll be my last ones if this is the best I can come up with. Or so my thinking goes. The current panicked thinking went like this: I've never written anything like this before, I have no desire to write anything like this, and I don't know how to write anything like this. Denial followed quickly afterward. It came in various forms: 1) it's summer, November is a long way off. I have hikes to plan, kayak trips to make, gardens to dig. I'll think about it over the summer, make some notes, get to it in the fall. 2) Maybe I can get out of it. Maybe I can convince the publisher that this type of anthology doesn't really require an introduction like that. 3) I don't remember my contract saying anything about an introduction of 14-15 pages. The contract was 7-8 pages long and I didn't read every word, but still. I think I would have noticed if I was required to write a 15 page introduction. I wouldn't have missed that. I see that my denial has crossed over into whining. Whining is also an ongoing part of my writing process, which sometimes, but not always, includes blaming the person who has required me to write this dumb thing. When I was a student, whining also involved bafflement about why my professor had chosen this ill-designed assignment to torture me with. As an instructor myself now, I'm quite familiar with this step in the process, but that doesn't stop me from getting sucked into it. Why do I have to do this? Why did I agree to it? Isn't there some way I can get out of it? It was September 15th as I wrote this and I'd procrastinated for a solid two months. Ever since I did a unit on procrastination in English 100, I've been aware that my procrastination is not only laziness. It often springs from a real fear of the unknown. I see the pattern. The more unfamiliar the writing task, the longer I procrastinate. Knowing this hasn't stopped it, but it has allowed me to learn one small strategy to get unstuck. Here's what I do. I take out the assignment, in my case an email from the publisher, and I read it over. In her email, the publisher recommends that I look at the publisher's past anthologies to get a sort of template for how to approach it. Good idea. I picked one off my shelf and read through it quickly. It helped, and it sent me to the library to find more samples. This is a strategy I recommend. If you're stuck (or just procrastinating), first take out the assignment and have a good look at it. Next, try to find and read something similar to what you have to do. You could start by checking the OWL at Purdue website for samples, or you could ask Max in the Student Success Centre, or you could ask a librarian for suggestions. - Francie Greenslade |
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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