Thread: The war against procrastination

Is there anyone who would categorise themselves as a procrastinator, and if so, have you found any methods to help lessen the impact that it has on your life?

I am the king of procrastination and it has seriously affected me. I always struggled with my school work. The ONLY thing that has worked for me is to A) make a calendar EACH MONTH with everything that I need to do, B) make a schedule for EACH DAY outlining my routine, and C) have my wife beat me savagely if I don't stick to it.

I have found that if I force myself into a routine, I can stick to it. Considering I do all my work on the same PC that contains my video games...well, that can make it harder.

EDIT: I use those little white board calendars to make my schedules. Right now, I'm supposed to be mowing the lawn...I'll do it this evening...

Originally Posted by Curiosity

Is there anyone who would categorise themselves as a procrastinator

Yes.

and if so, have you found any methods to help lessen the impact that it has on your life?

Yes.
I stopped caring about it.

How did sitting back and not caring about it fix everything? Currently being held back my inability to start work on things, and put way less time into them than I should.

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

I have found that if I force myself into a routine, I can stick to it. Considering I do all my work on the same PC that contains my video games...well, that can make it harder.

I suppose that that is the hardest part, deviating away from an already established routine to start up a new one.

Originally Posted by Curiosity

How did sitting back and not caring about it fix everything?

Who said anything about "fixing everything"?
The question was "have you found any methods to help lessen the impact that it has on your life?"
If I don't care about the impact then, by definition, the "impact" is unimportant to me.

Well, certainly a solution I suppose.

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

I am the king of procrastination and it has seriously affected me. I always struggled with my school work. The ONLY thing that has worked for me is to A) make a calendar EACH MONTH with everything that I need to do, B) make a schedule for EACH DAY outlining my routine, and C) have my wife beat me savagely if I don't stick to it.

I subscribe to solutions A and B, although I rarely make daily schedules due to procrastination.

Member Curiosity, this might be interesting for you:
Procrastination and impulsivity genetically linked: Exploring the genetics of 'I'll do it tomorrow' -- ScienceDaily

Originally Posted by Curiosity

Well, certainly a solution I suppose.

It works.
I decided to worry about it later...

Originally Posted by Curiosity

I suppose that that is the hardest part, deviating away from an already established routine to start up a new one.

Sitting down and writing out the schedule is easy, but sticking to it is hard. I had to come up with a reward system for myself. For instance, when I accomplish a task, I allow myself a certain amount of time to do something else like watch the Daily Show or play a video game.

Originally Posted by Cogito Ergo Sum

I subscribe to solutions A and B, although I rarely make daily schedules due to procrastination.

I should be clear that my daily schedule is not written out each day. For instance, when I was taking classes, I would take my schedule and plan study times and homework times, etc for the semester. At work, my schedule is typically prepared for me.

You could try a reward method - its what I used to keep to my assignments schedules. What you reward yourself with is up to you but how you talk to yourself about it is important too. Talk to yourself in definite statements - ie 'I am going to do xxxx and when thats done I will have the ....... (reward)'. If you tell yourself 'I should do xxxx' or 'I ought to do xxxx' you add guilty weight to the equation and then you start feeling rubbish about it and it just makes it worse. Get all sergeant major on yourself - 'today I will do xxxx and yyyy' etc - it will make a big difference.

Thanks for all the great tips guys

I'm going to sign up for the war next week.

I usually just pretend I'm in "the planning phase" when I'm procrastinating.

Procrastination isn't always bad. Sometimes putting things off until they have to be done allows you to gather useful information or even realize they don't need doing at all. The key is recognizing which things MUST be done and which can safely be put off for a while.

It seems like everytime a war gets declared on a behaviour we end up with more of it.
Maybe the first thing to do is postpone this war for a while and do something else instead.

Adam Dachis posted "How Seinfeld's Productivity Secret Fixed My Procrastination Problem" on the lifehacker site.
He has a couple of useful sounding ideas.

How Seinfeld's Productivity Secret Fixed My Procrastination Problem

Originally Posted by Flick Montana

C) have my wife beat me savagely if I don't stick to it.

That is operant conditioning with negative reinforcement isnt it? Or am I off?

Originally Posted by LuciDreaming

You could try a reward method - its what I used to keep to my assignments schedules. What you reward yourself with is up to you but how you talk to yourself about it is important too. Talk to yourself in definite statements - ie 'I am going to do xxxx and when thats done I will have the ....... (reward)'. If you tell yourself 'I should do xxxx' or 'I ought to do xxxx' you add guilty weight to the equation and then you start feeling rubbish about it and it just makes it worse. Get all sergeant major on yourself - 'today I will do xxxx and yyyy' etc - it will make a big difference.

You see?
THIS is why I never do anything.
You started off with "do XXX" and halfway through it changed to "XXX AND YYY".
It's never-bloody-ending.

If you don't do anything then there's no chance of "Well while I'm busy I might as well do ZZZ as well".

I have been thinking about responding to the OP for some time. I should have something to say later.

Yes :3 Please do. The more strategies the merrier.

I think you missed the point...

I found a good book.

Originally Posted by Curiosity

Is there anyone who would categorise themselves as a procrastinator, and if so, have you found any methods to help lessen the impact that it has on your life?

I'll always get around to something if there's nothing else to do. Learned that on a small island without electricity. So my universal advice is to reduce distractions.

And beware of comfort chores, that are inexhaustible and superficially productive.

Originally Posted by Dywyddyr

You see?
THIS is why I never do anything.
You started off with "do XXX" and halfway through it changed to "XXX AND YYY".
It's never-bloody-ending.

If you don't do anything then there's no chance of "Well while I'm busy I might as well do ZZZ as well".

Just think about all those rewards you are missing out on though

Originally Posted by LuciDreaming

Just think about all those rewards you are missing out on though

I'll think about them later.

I was going to post this earlier but...



The internet has got to be the greatest aid to procrastination yet invented...

I did something yesterday that I could have put off for quite a while. I'm quite resentful about that now.

I am somewhat of a procrastinator, but fortunately for me I can also catch up or present something that would take weeks to do in a few days.
For projects that require researching and data collection, you can use an active online community to ask questions and research for a solution faster. I know, I am just a big cheater, oopsies I mean resourceful.

I have often wondered which would be more unlikely: an organisation of procrsatinators, or one of anarchists.

In my experience the best way to defeat procrastination is by understanding that the you in the "now" want/desire/need different things than you in the "future". You often tell yourself, I'll do it later... But it isn't going to be "you" doing it later, it's "future you". "Future You" isn't necessarily going to be influenced by the same things "now you" are going to be influenced by. In short, understanding that your wants and desires are going to change means that the "you" best suited to accomplishing a task is "now you". If you can accept that, bite the bullet, and just do whatever it is you're delaying you might be able to eventually break the routine of putting things off. There's a pop-psych book called "You're not so Smart" or something like that, and a video explaining this went viral as a part of it's promotion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJ2T4-rUUcs

Having said all that, different things do work for different people - so just keep that in mind as well.

Have you tried the Pomodoro Technique. It works sometimes for me.

BTW. I'm procrastinating right now from my homework. I should start doing it now.

I wouldn't consider myself a procrastinator generally. Certain things I have a proper determination to do, but other things I do not.