I have a procrastination problem. Any tips?

[daisy]

I am currently procrastinating by making this topic. It kind of sucks that my work area is also my play and relax area. There is a library I can work in but social anxiety and I'm too used to having multiple screens.

I mean, come on Bog, referencing 1000 words is nothing. Get your finger out.

[onewaystreet]

I like to do an on/off work pattern if I can. 15 minutes work/5 minutes break or 20/10. Trying to do a project all in one go rarely ever works, so if you can break it up, then eventually you'll get it done.

[DieselPheonix]

Build a time machine.

If that is not possible, you already seem to know that having recreational areas separate from professional ones is beneficial to these ends. Why not spend some of that procrastination time rearranging your space to make it so? Even a small space can be repurposed for this, err, purpose. I know of someone who works in the bathroom, while not using it for its primary purpose of course. It is kept in pristine conditions as a result.

[Sven]

from my experiences in academia, observing the habits of pretty much everyone around me:

the most successful people I know guard their off time religiously and take it without shaming themselves about it. maybe you can only manage to work on something incredibly taxing for ten minutes at a time before it becomes daunting and you need 20 minutes to recuperate, but you can keep up that kind of schedule for an entire day. maybe you can work in half hour chunks with quick bejeweled breaks or something, but you eventually need a big break every 2-3 hours. whatever it ends up being, less is more, the goal is to avoid burnout.

splitting up tasks into manageable smaller pieces is the go-to advice for managing workflow, but that requires you actually know how to break the task up. .

[Narts]

Your problem is unsolvable and you will DIE procrastinating.

Ha ha ha!

[Linkman]

Keeping work and leisure spaces separate works wonderfully.

Use your university's libraries, study spaces, whatever. You don't need the computers/books/whatever they have there, but it's a clean space with few distractions and you'll find it much easier to get stuff done. And when you're not there, you won't feel any guilt for not working.

So echoing Sven!

[Sven]

separate work/leisure spaces is pretty much impossible if he needs to use a desktop for work. the best fix i've found is going through whatever your daily routine is, dress up as though if you'll go outside, but then spend the time at the desktop working on whatever.

it takes a special breed of self discipline to be able to stay on task in your underwear. all the more power to the people that can, but i can't.

[Linkman]

My library had plenty of desks--I'm sure a university as old as oxford must be filled to the brim with study nooks. Just need to find a good one.

Agree 100% on the underwear, it's impossible.

EDIT: Oh, did you mean desktop computer? That makes it more difficult yeah. But I bet boggy does everything on a laptop.

[Treedweller]

First, I'll echo what oneway and Sven said: work with a timer. Some like the Pomodoro technique. It's a good one, and I use its 25/5 split all the time. But when I'm doing taxing work (especially writing that isn't creative), I need to shorten work times and extend my breaks. Sometimes I'll do 10 minutes on and 15 minutes off, or even smaller and more embarrassing combinations of work and breaks. What's important is getting over your inertia. It makes starting again easier, and gets you into a mindset of focusing for set periods of time.

And that's the most useful thing about pomodoros or timers or timeboxing: with a simple timer, you develop a mindset that consecrates some time as focused time. This is holy work time, and that is holy play time, and I do very different things during each. I mean, if it helps to take your work outside to coffee shops or study spaces or whatevs, do it! But a trained brain is much more portable. You can use it anywhere, your distracting home and desktop included.

Second, you should really take Sven's idea of guilt-free off-time very seriously. In fact, I go so far as to schedule off-time for myself on my computer/phone's calendar. Because I'm a crazy person. Do I want to read a neat novel or play a neater game tonight? I'll schedule it between 8 and 9 PM, and no work will be allowed to intrude. Do I want to go to the gym? Well, I have it set in my schedule between 9 and 10:30 PM every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Nothing, barring the deadliest of emergencies, will stand in the way of my fun or my health and sanity. You shouldn't, however, treat scheduled leisure time as your only leisure time. You're going to do things spontaneously, because that's what being human/cyborg is all about. I just find it a relief to look at my schedule and see quiet times where I allow myself to work out, read, watch TV, or do something else that I enjoy but isn't 'optimal.'

In fact, my favourite book on procrastination, Neil Fiore's The Now Habit, talks about precisely this kind of guilt-free play. Read it. The Now Habit by no means 'cured' me of my tendency to procrastinate, but beyond anything else I've ever encountered, it gave me the most practical tools for dealing with procrastination.

Finally, if you live by yourself and have a living space to care for (like I do), then you probably know how distracting responsibility for an apartment or house can be. I used to get up in the middle of writing research papers and clean my bathroom (because scrubbing my toilet actually felt better than writing another sentence about an 18th century novel). I worried about the dishes rotting in my sink, thought I'd feel less panicked if I had a fridgeful of grocercies, and decided that making my bed was the only way the sun god would allow the day to continue on.

Now, I designate each Sunday my catch-up day. Throughout the week, I collect a list of chores that I thought of doing but refused to distract myself during important work with (sweeping under the oven, washing my floors, dusting my bookshelves, baking myself these delicious mini-omelettes in a muffin tin). Then, on Sundays (on which I do no real work), I do whatever I can on that list. Now, I have a way cleaner house and clearer head. I've built confidence in myself that I'll actually do chores later, so in the middle of whatever I'm doing, I trust myself to get back to doing whatever work I'm doing at home. I still pick up after myself throughout the week of course (I'm a pretty neat guy, hon), but this is the best way I've found to avoid one of home's most tempting distractions: endless (and mindless) busywork and tidying.

[kiwi]

find something else to procrastinate about and then use that as an excuse to to do the first thing you didn't want to do in order to not do the other thing! EXAMPLE: I had to fill out a super boring contract and then I found out my grumpy relatives were coming over so I wrote the thing instead of cleaning up my place because they never approve of my lifestyle anyway! everyone wins, except grumpy people!

[Dragonite]

I could always focus easier in public spaces.A lot of school-related places are rather cozy as well, helps me get into the mood(some place that has coffee and some BGM somehow helps for me) A lot of distractions(gaming, leaving to do something else), are harder by default. And when stressed, try to calm yourself down first if you can manage it. And the only real respite from the passive tension is getting back into the working flow.

[HPD]

I've always liked the library, study rooms and whatnot as places in which I work, since I can't ever seem to get crumpets done from home. I've got a laptop with nothing much on it except for stuff like word/LaTeX/etc. which I tend to take with me if nothing else is available. Like most people here, it seems, I find that a change of environment is a large benefactor in getting myself to work on something.

Too bad the library close to home has stupid opening hours. :/

[daisy]

You know what, I already break my work up into chunks. I maybe work for ~15 minutes at a time (guessing) and then take a break, but I label the break as procrastination and kick myself for it before heading back into the land of Microsoft Word. I think I just need to do when you guys have been saying and plan my time better.

Treed: I find my course fun. Or parts of it, anyway. I am legitimately interested in two thirds of it, so often off-time and work-time can merge. Would you recommend doing something completely unrelated during the breaks, or is reading a crumpets agitprop book still a good idea?

Linky: I work on a desktop. I find laptops far too constricting to do anything real on unless I have to. I tend to spend more time getting irritated at the keyboard and trackpad than I do working. I do own a laptop, and I might do "light work" on it, (IE notes, watching relevant documentaries, group work, meetings, etc) but frankly I'd rather blowtorch my nipples off than write anything longer than a few hundred words with a laptop keyboard. <3 my mechanical keyboard

FYI, the work I was procrastinating over somehow got marked within 12 hours. I don't think the professor sleeps. I got a 2:1. I think I may have a confidence problem. Maybe I'm not actually that bad...

[Treedweller]

Treed: I find my course fun. Or parts of it, anyway. I am legitimately interested in two thirds of it, so often off-time and work-time can merge. Would you recommend doing something completely unrelated during the breaks, or is reading a crumpets agitprop book still a good idea?

I found that no matter how interested I was in my course materials, I still needed a completely unrelated break from working. Reading coursework as a reward for writing didn't work for me at all.

But if you like it and it works for you, then do it!

[scraggypunk]

tell yourself you only get to have a bubble bath after your work is done
works for me

[HPD]

Dave, a decent external keyboard is not that expensive

that, a mouse and a dock works wonders

[daisy]

Then what's the point in a laptop? I'm not hauling all that to a library.

[Linkman]

You may work wherever you want of course, HPD and I are just saying: this made it easier for us to function. Getting yourself out of your leisure zone (something you seem to be unwilling to do), makes it so much easier to get crumpets done.

[daisy]

Oh no, I'd love to. And I do get crumpets done, eventually. When you're used to two 1080p monitors do you have any idea how difficult it is to switch to a comparitively tiny 768p screen?

[Linkman]

Yes, I do it on a daily basis. Be adaptable!

[HPD]

I don't quite often agree with Linky, but this time I do. I know it feels weird and unwieldy at first, but you get used to it pretty quickly. At least for my part.

[Linkman]

whatcha talkin' about bro we agree all the time

For instance, I posit ladies bosoms' are rad. Do you agree?

[daisy]

I've been thinking about this. As I mentioned in my first post, anxiety is also an issue. My room = my safe place

[JSRulz]

Procrastination is no joke, especially when your work place is your play place. Trust me, it happens to me ALL the TIME. For example, I know I have this huge project to do. However, instead of doing that, I say that I'll just check up on my emails. Then while checking on my emails, I say I'll just watch a movie. Then while watching a movie, I insist I need to go out and eat. Any and all distractions I let get to me, and then I just let them snowball up so I don't have to think about the first problem. However, there comes a point in where you have to get work done, in a reasonable time frame. Here is some tips I used to "break the cycle" of procrastination.

1) Get a steady routine

The reason we procrastinate in the first place, is that our bodies don't have the willpower to do the task at hand. Either it is boring, or you have writers block, or you just can't commit because you are too tired. We hate punishing ourselves, so instead we treat ourselves to something else. This pretty much sums up procrastination. The first step is to set up a routine in where you have to do work, at a certain time of day. This actually forms a habit, which you can use to tell your body who is boss. The good thing about making a habit out of work time, is that day by day, you'll get closer to the point of not thinking about it. However, that is pretty much "pushing the cart before the horse" for many people, so...

2) Do not force yourself

Our bodies have limited strength, and even more limited resources. Given our roots as human beings, the last thing our bodies want to do is sit down for hours on end doing absolutely nothing. I think our bodies forcing us to do things is a reaction to us staying seated for far too long and our muscles needing time to stretch out. When fatigue or frustration hits, it is pretty important to break routine for a short while to regain composure. If a short break doesn't work, call it a day and try again the next day. Your brain doesn't work well when stressed out, and the ability to hit "flow" is severely weakened. Therefore, at those critical "I can't take it anymore" times, it is very important to take as much of a break as you need to stay focused and on task.

3) Get some sleep... seriously

This is the one that I say many fail on, but 6-10 hours of rest daily does wonders for focus. They say that 8 is peak, but from my experience, 7 hours of sleep is extremely important. Mixing sleep alongside a diet that will not make you feel sluggish (like eating chips all day) really helps your brain operate at peak performance. Not getting rest really makes you hit fatigue faster, which gives you a lot more reason to procrastinate.

4) Don't give up...

The best way to fight procrastination is to develop good habits. I know from experience, that the moment you don't schedule a time to get things done, then you don't feel any obligation to do those things. Being in top shape to perform is good, but getting rid of your bad habits (like watching the TV the moment you get home, or checking the emails when you sit down), and replacing them will go a long way in fixing procrastination. It is pretty challenging, especially for people like me, where you work were you play. You just have to keep focused on keeping on task, and then you'll slowly fall out off it.

Good luck. I know it isn't easy...

[Treedweller]

That's excellent, thoughtful advice JayEss darling. I wish you spent more time around here - you seem like a smart (and very likeable) guy.

[Narts]

No, he doesn't. All of his advice is crumpets, bog standard generic feel good nonsense you could have found on the google in five seconds. So is yours. Also, stop sucking people's dicks.

[JSRulz]

Okay, Narts... show me the link where I got the information. I'm dying to see it

I usually lurk around a lot, for reasons like this. Optimism is so rare to find in a dismal situation. However, I just have much better things to do than to scurry around in the scraps. I post only when I feel I have something great to add. Sadly for me though, the smell of rotten flesh is looming about the air...

[Narts]

Google "procrastination" and look through all the results that say "top five tips to stop procrastinating"

[JSRulz]

Hmmm... seems like you are procrastinating a bit yourself on giving me that link I know you can be a bit more direct than that Narts.

[scraggypunk]

narts is a sourpuss

[Sven]

top 10 ways to satisfy your man stop procrastinating.

[Sven]

ps here is some productivity advice personalized for narts

[Linkman]

<3 wwn

also <3 narts

[Narts]

sorry was too busy partying, having fun and CONQUERING LADIES to be babysitting clueless muppets on the internet

but here is your helpful fudge link

[hawkesnightmare]

CONQUERING LADIES

[Gallant]

Eh. I have some huge problems with that too. Man, there has days (months) since I've said I'd go to that library out there near, my house. And I still haven't.

I noticed the lack of a schedule gives me much more problems than I thought, and I (still) can't create one. Mostly because I have much free time. Now that I have a sort of job, I'm fighting myself to do it and not procrastinate whenever it's possible.

I wonder how people here mange their schedules?