Procrastination Sucks!

Hello!  Birdman here, back for more!

My goal to stop procrastinating has not gone too well.  In fact, I’m procrastinating as I write this.  It’s about 1 AM and I’m in the middle of writing a short essay for English class.  It’s just like that episode of Spongebob, yeah Spongebob!, when he has to write that essay for boating school.  It only has to be 1 – 1.5 measly pages, double-spaced.  In my mind, it should take the average person about an hour to do a good quality job on it.  I’ve been working on it for about two hours and am still not done.  But I’ve also managed to burn two music CD’s, send two emails, and go to the bathroom twice during that two hour period.  I can’t explain why everything’s in two’s, hehe.

I often think of the guy from the movie Office Space, when he says something like, “In a given day, I probably only do about 15 minutes of actual work.”  I’m the same way.  OK, I probably put in more time than that, but still, I waste a lot of time procrastinating.  I feel like, what should realistically take someone about 1 hour to do, takes me 3 hours.  That’s why I want to change.  Just think of how much more I could accomplish each day if I could just work more productively!

It’s getting to the point where the whole thing is making me really frustrated with myself.  And it’s starting to take its toll.  I only slept about 14 hours in the past 5 days.  Now I’m tired all day long and can’t get things done as fast, so I end up staying awake longer trying to get things done for the next day.  It’s a slippery slope situation.  I really hope to find some time when I can just refocus, catch my breath, and then really start working.

But I suppose I can’t expect instant change.  It’s a learning process.  If I look at this situation positively … maybe this ‘skill’ to procrastinate will make me an expert in the field of procrastination.  I could write a textbook on the subject.  And the best part would be, while I would procrastinate writing the textbook, I’d technically be doing research, heehee.

But really, I need to change this part about myself.  Giggles, I need your help on this one!  Giggles is the most amazing, anti-procrastinated person I’ve ever known.  She has all her homework done for the next week and maybe more.  I admire her so much for that, because I can’t imagine finding the determination to start homework so far in advance. 

Part of the procrastination problem might be due to the fact that I’m not interested in any of the homework I have to do.  I’m only interested in one class this semester, my business entrepreneurship course, but we rarely have any homework for that class.  Otherwise I have English literature – the industrial novel (readings related to tough economic times in England during the 19^th century), another English literature course that has a wide range of focus (and that class I don’t mind so much), and finally a math class – Operations Research.  By the way, I’m a math major with minors in business and creative writing.  Although I’m a math major, I tell people that I hate math.

That might be my problem right there.  It’s how I mentally perceive things to be.  I was doing homework with Giggles recently, and she was working on dilution problems.  She commented, “I hate dilution problems.”  And I told her, “Don’t say that, or you will hate them.  No … you love dilution problems!  Dilution problems are fun!”  Maybe I should practice what I preach.  Perhaps if I told people I love math, I’d begin to like it more.

I believe it’s like that for just about anything.  If you think positively about something, you’ll have a more positive experience.  One of my beliefs is: if you don’t have fun with what you do, that’s your fault.  It’s your responsibility to make it fun!  Just convince yourself with positive thinking J

So here’s a list of things I’m going to do that I think might help me out:
1.) Get myself psyched to do homework
2.) Determine when I will work and for how long
3.) Remove all distractions like email and blogs J
4.) Give myself a reward after finishing, like being able to exercise or eat something good
5.) Remind myself not to deviate from my work when I get the urge to attend to something else

Like I mentioned, I don’t expect to pick up great study habits just like that.  But I’m hoping that by the end of the semester, I’ll be closer to Giggles’ level of homework-doing-ness ability.

Whoa, that’s really spooky … it’s after 1:30 AM now and when I came out of the bathroom (time #3 tonight) the radio in my brother’s room across the hallway just turned on all by itself – like the switch got switched to radio somehow from the off position.  And it was pretty loud, loud enough to have heard it earlier … Yikes!  Well I’m too scared to sleep now, so I guess it’s a sign that I should finish my homework.  Or maybe it’s a sign that I should go to sleep because I’m losing my mind!

OK, I’m going to get back to the essay!  Actually, I’m too friggin tired now.  I don’t think I could do much in my state.  But later today after I sleep, it’s really going to get done!

Do work!

Birdman
Love, Listen, Learn, Laugh J