Anti-crastination and Time: How?

CorcoranCadet

Long time lurker here with a bit of a problem. I hope that this forum might help me with it as it has helped so many before. Anyways, I have recently gotten a large block of free time to work on a project for school. Unfortunately, I apparently can't make any progress. Every time I make a goal for myself, such as completing a page, I immediately go and play a round of one of my favorite video games. To make myself feel like I'm working, I'll clean up my room a bit, but I still haven't accomplished the main task.

Beyond that, I feel like playing games like HoN and HOI3 is just eating up my time. I have a few books I would like to read for pleasure. I have this one big project I'm working on in addition to 2 other papers for school that will be due in about a month or so. You would think I would work on them, but no. My days seem to go like this. Wake up:Go to Class:Eat Lunch:Go to Extracurriculur Activity:Eat Dinner:Play Games:Go to Bed By the end of the day I feel so exhausted sometimes that all I want to do is get on the computer where I know I'm not going to have to worry about anything and I can relax. The other day I looked at my total play time, (It isn't an MMO) and it is far higher than what it should be. It's especially frightening when I have projects that will eventually affect my GPA and future job. I'm almost out of college and I don't even feel like I'm meeting my potential.

I guess this isn't really just a procrastination question so much as a priorities question. Are there any strategies you all use to minimize procrastination? Also, how to do you set priorities for yourselves and stick to them?

eternalbl

Reward yourself for making a plan and sticking to it. Say you want to go out or waste a night playing games - before you can start doing either you must have accomplished x.

Unfortunately the short answer is that it just comes down to discipline.

Or maybe next time your bored instead of thinking about how this project needs to be done by X date, you should start thinking about how you'll do part X of the project and maybe you'll end up getting motivated and start putting together some of your ideas?

finnith

There's not much you can do, except will yourself into working. Hell, even as I type this I am failing at this. I have a Philosophy paper on the principle of beneficence due tomorrow at 5. In addition, I have two midterms and two group projects due in the next two weeks. This is of course not including three of my exams which are in the first week of April, and my last (Philosophy) which is on the third. You're eventually going to screw yourself over, like I have and you don't want that.

As an aside, Peter Singer's theory is pretty ridiculous.

CorcoranCadet

It's comforting at least to know that there are other in the same predicament. Heh

kaliyama

Work at the lab. Polluting your home with your workspace is bad for sleep, ability to focus and happiness, even in college.

Grenn

I struggle immensely with distractions, but manage to keep very busy and productive through discipline and self-trickery.

I use endless lists for what I need to get done and I project manage tasks often to the n'th degree. I will break down a project into smaller tasks and make further lists allowing me to make progress in smaller increments - i.e. I'll make a list of, say, 3 smaller elements of a larger task, and I'll tell myself I only need to get these three things done and then I can do whatever else I want with my time for the day/evening.

As long as I have planned things out in advance, I am still 'on track' for completing the project in time.

The other technique I use is 'time-boxing' - which is blocking off relatively small boxes of time and devoting them to one project. Let's say I have 4 hours in an evening free - I decide to box off just 1 hour of that time to the project, and then allow myself to do whatever I want with the remaining 3.

The end result is that I will be more productive in that 1 focused hour than I would have been using the whole 4 hours.

Typically both the above techniques work in my favour, because I find that once I've met my minimum tasks or box of time, I'm actually in quite a productive mood and will continue to work.

At the same time, I'm a firm believer that you can't always just force work out of you (certainly when it comes to creative work), so if I'm just not feeling it, I don't force it - I do the minimum I have set myself and then spend time on other things.

There are loads of blogs/books out there on productivity and time management, definitely worth doing some research to see if you find some techniques which work for you personally.

Good luck!

Scooter

One way to focus is to work someplace else, a library or computer lab or a relative's house, or something like that, where you and your distractions are separated. Then set yourself a time, like it were a job - 'I'll work for 8 hours, then I get to go home.' You may not actually be focused on the work all 8 hours, even computer labs have solitaire and web games, but ultimately you'll still want to get the job done so you can get out of there, because those eventually get really boring. Change your schedule so you get to campus 2 hours early, so you have nothing better to do but work.


As a guy with a real job and no classes anymore, it kind of surprises me. Assignments I'd put off for 2 months in school would only last about 2 days with my 'at work' habits, if only I'd had them then.

Erios

Play fewer games that reward practice and repetition. Especially multiplayer games. Multiplayer games are the fucking devil for a highly time-intensive productivity schedule. My gaming, over the past few years, has shifted from playing whatever multiplayer game, TF2 and WoW to only AAA and very niche single player games or local multi games that I can dick around with my friends in.

Idea: cut out your gaming for a little bit. Not because it's bad, but because you clearly need sleep. You trying to shoehorn in entertainment may actually be the cause of your exhaustion, which means you can't really focus on getting work done. Hell, if you want to be really experimental, instead of going on the computer, go to bed. If you really want to game some, get up 2 hours before you normally would and do it then. Frankly, for me at least, games are only fun for a few hours and when I don't have something mega-huge hanging over my head. You may get more total utility from your games out of fewer game hours but with more rest and fewer worries.

It's hard for me to focus on projects or arduous tasks when exhausted. I've learned that instead of trying to slog through it, I should get more sleep, even if it's just for 2 or 3 hours. Then I take another crack at it. Failing tiredness, I find cleaning my room constantly helps. In addition, going out for a quick 20 minute walk often focuses the head when I know I'm procrastinating.

Although my experience may be a tad different, as I have ADHD and I take powerful stims which focus me like a laser beam on any given task and almost mitigate the need for sleep.

If all else fails, the secret Erios technique: procrastinate with something else that's bothering you. Don't wanna do the paper? Do the dishes and clean the floors and put your shit away. Don't want to write up citations for your paper? Go to the gym, clean yourself up and do something else. You'll make good headway on your anxiety-causing stressors (which often cause me to procrastinate) and become more efficient and clear-headed. I generally take the opposite view as Grenn to get to the same conclusion: combine all the stressful things in your life into one big monolith. Then, take the quickest, highest payoff per unit time activities and just slam yourself into them. Note, this does not work under very close deadlines. So don't clean your room 5 hours before your 10 page paper that you haven't started is due.

corcorigan

Just do something. Anything (ideally relevant). Sit down and do it, right now.

Then you'll feel better.

jedikuonji

When I was in school I had this same issue. I got tired of always being behind on projects so I went to the admin office of the building I had most of my classes in and asked if I could use an empty classroom in the evenings. This turned out to be a great solution. Not only did it get me away from the distractions, but it also put me in the building I was already used to concentrating on class which made it easier to stay focused. It also helped that there was usually a teacher staying late in the building so if I had any questions I could drop by and ask them and even chat about other stuff for a nice little break. Having the room available was also great for getting classmates together to study before tests.

You don't necessarily need to work in a classroom, but I strongly urge you to get out of the house and to someplace where you will not be distracted by gaming or whatever.

On the topic of reading for leisure: do it while you eat. I got into the habit of reading during every meal that I could and now reading while eating feels like the most natural thing in the world. It's also nice because I know that regardless of how busy I am, I can at least get in a little reading every day if I so choose because I know I have to stop for a bite sooner or later.

Robman

Make a plan

Stick to it

That's it. The deep dark secret of time management revealed.

finnith

I find that I'm a lot more productive when I study at my uni (I commute) since I almost feel forced to study since everyone else is working as well.

Also, and update to my situation, I just broke one of my fingers in two places. I might need surgery and I have six exams within the next month. Woo.

AlyceInWonderland

I have the same problem as you, OP. In fact, I should be working on my thesis right now, but hey look, I'm procrastinating while typing a response to a thread about procrastination! Today has consisted, for me, of waking up, playing a video game, working on my thesis for a bit, interwebz browsing, more browsing, dying in phalla, bit more thesis, another game....continuing to not work on what I need to work on...thesis...forum.

However, here's the thing. I set a goal for my self. I need to get this thesis done by TONIGHT. And well, even while working on it on and off, with games and internet inbetween, I'm well on my way to it being finished.
Goals and schedules work for me generally.

My problem is that I just want to be done with school, I've had enough of it this year, and it's really bogging me down. Even while on spring break, I had an insane amount of work that needed to get done. I don't know if that might be your issue too, seeing as you said you're almost done with school, you might just want it to be fucking OVER.

Anyway, do one thing at a time. Tell yourself to have such and such done by a specific day. Hell, by tomorrow even, so you can fuck around and do whatever you like with out worrying about work.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense right now. I'm tired.... aaand..back to thesis.


Edit: Tell yourself "if I work on what I need to do for an hour, I'll then reward my self with an hour of games." and let the cycle begin. Hour of work, hour of games, and so on.

LoveIsUnity

I'm currently fucking up on writing my MA thesis as well. You're in good company. Also, I second the suggestions that breaking a larger task up in to smaller tasks makes a big project more manageable.

This may just be something that works for me, but I tend be way more productive with my writing if I write on a legal pad as opposed to straight up typing a paper. If all I have is a legal pad and the books I need I'm less likely to come on PA or see if anyone I know is on Skype.

And, on that note, I'm going to finish grading these stupid papers that I don't want to grade because all of my students wrote them at the last minute and now I have to suffer. This seems to be a vicious cycle...

GothicLargo

I'm gonna say this:

I procrastinated my way through engineering. If you can wait until the last minute to get things done and still manage to swing a B/C average, don't change what you're doing, you probably won't do any better by getting it done sooner.

Procrastination IS a valid method for managing your time as long as you are ultimately getting things done at a satisfactory quality level. I've found that when you try to take people who operate on procrastination, and make them try to not procrastinate, all you're doing is timeshifting; the quality of their work doesn't noticeably improve.