Here you are, for the umpteenth time, slurping copious amounts of coffee while trying to construct coherent sentences together at 4am to submit that notorious assignment. Take a sip of coffee-type. Wash your face with freezing cold water- and continue typing.
Why soldier on like a zombie? The work needs to get done, and it’s not going to magically appear in your hand. Never mind that it may be of less than your best quality, the realities of your amazing procrastination techniques are biting you in the bum - again.
“Procrastination”- the word has Latin etymological roots. Pro meaning “forward”and crastinus -"belonging to tomorrow”. You get the drift.
Believe in it, revel in it, and you win…..an unproductive and unsuccessful life!
This all depends on the severity and frequency of your procrastination, of course.
The causes of your procrastinator state could be any one, or combination of the following.
Psychological psyche out: A fear of failure, low self esteem, perfectionistic “all or nothing” or an already defeated mentality may become an extremely real obstacle in getting down to work.
For all you Journo’s and English folk – writers block: Again, this can be attributed to the aforementioned psyche babble. One upside – you probably really have this luxury when you have an essay you haven’t started due in 2 hours. Nor will you have it when you churn out story after story in the newsroom.
Here it comes, the epiphanic moment. Time doesn’t really care about any of that stuff. It’s still going to move on, even though you may have come to a dead halt. Get yourself moving. Jump around and get the creative juices flowing.
How to overcome this is relatively simple – change your time paradigm. A paradigm is best described by Sean Covey in his book “7 Habits for highly effective teens”. In a nutshell, your paradigm is your viewpoint, the glasses of your life. Either your vision is better with them, or they are warped and blurry.
The truth is, especially in first year, there is enough time to do all your work and still have a decent social life. It all boils down to priorities. My reality is that I have a “time is abundant-it can wait till tomorrow” mentality. The first part of my statement is calming in the sense that people who constantly live with a “time is scarce” mentality may be prone to constant and sometimes unnecessary stress, which in itself is a form of procrastination. The latter part is where the problem lies.
Putting things off till the last minute is like cruising along down a road, and then having a big fat pig fly into your windscreen. You never see it coming.
Change your mindset. Be more aware of the time you have available to you. Get a diary. Plan a little, and be open to the notion that one day… pigs will probably learn how to fly. Life will throw you curveballs that you don’t expect. Try on a pair of a “can-do-now” paradigm specs, and learn how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time.
Why soldier on like a zombie? The work needs to get done, and it’s not going to magically appear in your hand. Never mind that it may be of less than your best quality, the realities of your amazing procrastination techniques are biting you in the bum - again.
“Procrastination”- the word has Latin etymological roots. Pro meaning “forward”and crastinus -"belonging to tomorrow”. You get the drift.
Believe in it, revel in it, and you win…..an unproductive and unsuccessful life!
This all depends on the severity and frequency of your procrastination, of course.
The causes of your procrastinator state could be any one, or combination of the following.
Psychological psyche out: A fear of failure, low self esteem, perfectionistic “all or nothing” or an already defeated mentality may become an extremely real obstacle in getting down to work.
For all you Journo’s and English folk – writers block: Again, this can be attributed to the aforementioned psyche babble. One upside – you probably really have this luxury when you have an essay you haven’t started due in 2 hours. Nor will you have it when you churn out story after story in the newsroom.
Here it comes, the epiphanic moment. Time doesn’t really care about any of that stuff. It’s still going to move on, even though you may have come to a dead halt. Get yourself moving. Jump around and get the creative juices flowing.
How to overcome this is relatively simple – change your time paradigm. A paradigm is best described by Sean Covey in his book “7 Habits for highly effective teens”. In a nutshell, your paradigm is your viewpoint, the glasses of your life. Either your vision is better with them, or they are warped and blurry.
The truth is, especially in first year, there is enough time to do all your work and still have a decent social life. It all boils down to priorities. My reality is that I have a “time is abundant-it can wait till tomorrow” mentality. The first part of my statement is calming in the sense that people who constantly live with a “time is scarce” mentality may be prone to constant and sometimes unnecessary stress, which in itself is a form of procrastination. The latter part is where the problem lies.
Putting things off till the last minute is like cruising along down a road, and then having a big fat pig fly into your windscreen. You never see it coming.
Change your mindset. Be more aware of the time you have available to you. Get a diary. Plan a little, and be open to the notion that one day… pigs will probably learn how to fly. Life will throw you curveballs that you don’t expect. Try on a pair of a “can-do-now” paradigm specs, and learn how to eat an elephant – one bite at a time.
RSS Feed (xml)
No comments:
Post a Comment