Help a procrastinator.

Hey man! I know that very well. I started to do yoga exercises and it helped me very much. I do breathing exercises often when I feel that slide into procrastinating...

All the best...

 

Hi @bhquitter , I feel you man. PMOing screwed up my undergrad years big time. But I've realized one thing, the first step (and ONLY THE FIRST) is to remove the sources of distraction i.e porn, youtube, facebook etc. Setup a filter (like K9) on your laptop/mobile. Block any sites you've noticed you waste time on. I've noticed that if I restrict my access to distractions, the only way I keep myself busy is by doing things I should have been doing in the first place.

Hope this helps.

 

I think i ever had the same problem. My solution from that, when i loose motivation to study. I just go outside and walking around for couple of times. Feeling the nature and sometimes it blow my mind to refresh again. So i go to study.

That was what i do, so it's work for you too?

 

The habit of perfectionism paralyzes our ability to make decisions and commitments, while the habit of procrastination paralyzes our ability to take action. Perfectionism is the result of a mental obsession with achieving the “ideal”—as a minimum requirement—in all situations and areas of life. Procrastination results from the refusal to take action until an “ideal” result is guaranteed in every situation. These two habits almost always accompany each other. You seldom have one without the other.

Two negative habits that continually reinforce each other. Perfectionists are always procrastinators, and procrastinators are always perfectionists. All individuals have some perfectionism and procrastination in their make-up—even if in very small amounts—but for some people these two habits dominate their thinking and action over their entire lifetime. As a result, they always have chronically low personal confidence, and this will never improve until these paralyzing habits are eliminated.

Perfectionism: obsession with the “ideal.” Perfectionism represents a belief system about how life should work—not how life actually does work, but how it should. This is a crucial point. Perfectionists live in an all-encompassing world of “shoulds.” They especially direct this toward themselves. They “should” be this, they “should” have done that, this “shouldn’t” have happened to them. And, in every case, what actually did happen never measures up to their judgment about what should have happened. Perfectionism leads to a perpetual dissatisfaction with the past and pessimism about the future. In both cases, past and future, as well as the present, perfectionists never take ownership of what happens to them.

Procrastination: refusal to take action. Procrastinators insist on guarantees before taking action in a world that doesn’t provide any guarantees. They continually end up feeling guilty over their stupidity, and yet they keep emotionally insisting on the guarantees. Because of their obsession with perfectionism, they find it difficult to make a decision or a commitment unless they can be certain it will lead to an “ideal” result. Out of necessity, they have to produce some results in life just to make an income, but it’s always a struggle. Procrastinators are their own worst enemies because they undermine their own confidence and cut themselves off from opportunities, resources, and capabilities that other people could provide to them—if only they would take action at the appropriate time.

Valuable opportunities are lost because of these habits.

When we spend our lives waiting until we're perfect or bulletproof before we do something with our lives, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable.

A child has no trouble believing the unbelievable, nor does the genius or the madman. It's only you and I with our big brains and our tiny hearts, who doubt and overthink and hesitate.

The longer you procrastinate, the bigger deal it becomes to overcome.

 

Oh my God. This describes me spot on. I’m the world’s worst procrastinator. Me and my friend were discussing this the other day. Him and I are both habitually late to everything in our lives. When a decision needs to be made or action required of me, it feels like a thorn in my side. I then say to myself “I’ll deal with that later” then fool myself into feeling better. I do the minimum to get by but I am so tired of living this way.

 

hmmm. What helped me to decrease my procrastination is literally rewire my brain to understand immediate actions. For example, I would make post-its around the room reminding me what needs to be done. It could be "do 10 pushups through this door" or "if you looked here, you were being lazy". Ultimately, you want to make sure you're always double checking yourself. In order to not relapse into the cycle of procrastination is to be creative also which is a great tip. Change up on things when you start the day. Change your routine from getting coffee to getting tea or something. Simple tasks like that will eventually help you get rid of procrastination. That's a way that helped me get my stuff together.

 

I'll give you some advice later.

 

You make a lot of impressive posts, very well said!

 

First, go back and reread @elevate 's post.

Second, there's a theory in psychology that all of our actions, emotions, whathaveyou all serve a purpose for us, else we would not do it. It may be a maladaptive purpose, but it is a purpose nonetheless. The next time you're struck with a 'bout of procastination, ask yourself what you are procrastinating from? What are you hiding from? What purpose is your procrastinating serving you?

Third, as a terrible procrastinator myself, I've come up with a few good practices:

1. "Shut up and write": this is, effectively, an emotional dump on whatever page you're working on. Just shut up and write everything that's going on in your mind. This often unclogs the jam in your brain and gets some ideas down.
2. "You only have to do it for 5 minutes": A task buy-in trick. Doesn't matter how big or how long the paper/email/project/whatever, you only have to do it for 5 minutes. You don't need to finish the thing this instant, you just need to get started. Generally, when I use this trick I spend the next hour working on it. But on those occasions where 5 minutes is all I can do, then I have done 5 minutes of it.
3. Break it into smaller tasks: Oh my lord, does this work. You do not need to move the whole mountain of sand, you need to move this one grain. Then the next, then the next. Writing a paper? Break it into sections (Intro, conclusion, Arg 1, 2, 3...and do citations as you type), then break each of those sections into rough ideas, drafted paragraphs, and polished/edited section. This way, you don't need to write the whole paper when you sit down, just take the rough ideas of argument 2 and draft them into paragraphs. So much more doable! Reading an article? Start with the conclusion (it's the summary, after all), then read/take notes on each section in turn.
4. Get help and get organised: I learned SO MUCH about organisation and learning and all this stuff from the Learning Strategist at my school (find the Academic Success centre or Writing help ppls). If you have six hours to chop down a tree, spend four hours sharpening the axe!

 

Procrastination and perfectionism are forms of escape. Escaping pain, problems, and negative experiences. Just like with PMO. That conditions you to look for easy, instant, and certain gratification. Which makes you even weaker when it comes time to face problems in reality.

It's a matter of what you want to develop. If you want to develop your reality, then you'll have to handle higher quality pain, problems and negative experiences in order to have higher quality pleasure, solutions, and positive experiences.

Reality is chaotic, messy, awkward, unideal, difficult, uncomfortable, and uncertain. Things like PMO / video games / junk food are just so much easier. The bigger the barrier for you to overcome, the bigger the reward. Sure the easy things are comfortable and instantly satisfying, but it also leads to an empty and unfulfilling life. Your problems become something like "which grocery store has my favorite chips?" / "which porn site will I use today?" rather than things like "which difficult things that I know I should do to become the person I want to be will I do today?".

I do scary, difficult, uncomfortable, and uncertain things that I DON'T feel like doing all the time. Because I place more value on the person I'm becoming and the life that I'm developing rather than placing more importance on my immediate gratification and comfort.

Repeated courage leads to competence. Repeated competence leads to confidence. Repeated confidence leads to even more courage to that specific thing and towards other areas of your life. Being insecure and incompetent takes courage to get through all the pain, problems, and negative experiences that leads to the higher quality pleasure, solutions, and positive experiences. I'm uncertain with a lot of things, but I'm certain with the process of facing my problems.

Make a habit of doing things that you don't feel like doing to become the person you want to be and to have the life that you want to have. Make a habit of it just for the sake of conditioning yourself out of the weak mentality that needs to escape.

People think that little procrastinating here and there doesn't hurt, but in the long run it does because you're conditioning yourself to escape. Which leads to things like PMO.

 

That also leads to perfectionism.

Why would I want to do scary, difficult, uncomfortable, and uncertain things unless I have a guaranteed outcome and favorable conditions that makes things easier for me?

Do you guys see the way procrastination and perfectionism conditions you to become weaker over time?

It doesn't matter that there's 5 guys standing around that cute woman. It doesn't matter that her mom is right there. It doesn't matter that you forgot to put on deodorant. It doesn't matter that you had a really bad day so far. You go talk to her. It's going to be messy, awkward, unideal, uncomfortable, scary, and uncertain, BUT you're not escaping from doing the thing you know should be doing to become the person you want to be and having the life you want to have.

 

We all live in a house on fire, no fire department to call; no way out, just the upstairs window to look out of while the fire burns the house down with us trapped, locked in it.

That's life. Since we were born, our time has been running out. We neglect this fact. We forget that we're all going to die sooner or later. So we put off the important things that we know we should be doing.

Yes, there's a lot of scary, uncomfortable, and uncertain things out there, but what's really going to matter and make you proud at the end of your life?

Failure or success / Acceptance or rejection / Victory or defeat... these things don't matter nearly as much as having the bold, daring, adventurous, and curious courage to try and reach further beyond your current place. Life is one big experimental playground. Put yourself in situations where things can happen. Nothing can happen if you don't play. You won't get hurt, but you also won't have much of a life.



Everything turns into dust sooner or later. Reflect on what's important and live with the eventuality of death in mind.

 

If you think of it that way, uncomfortable things may feel funner.

 

I have a technique for procrastination. Next time you gotta do something, try this:

When you have to do a task, count down from 10 in your head, and then do it. What this does is clear your mind from the thoughts of procrastinating and eventually, it will become a powerful habit. Works for me even though it seems silly. I'd say give it a shot​