If you understand where procrastination comes from and counterintuitively accept it in yourself, you'll probably find it easier to navigate and manage.
You've put into words exactly what I've been doing for the past few days. Revising? Nah, that sounds hard and scary. Literally anything else except the assignments which are also due? You're on.
I'm saving this post to remind me to "get on with it". Once the exams are done, I can loosen up. A bit.
Inspirational, Graham. As far as my garden design, I've come to understand procrastination as the feeling of essential mental preparation. It's become a valuable part of the design process, and I cant design any other way - it's the system that works. I visit a site, I take it all in, I chat with the clients over copious cups of tea, I get to know their likes and dislikes and I get know them as well as the land. I tell the client when I'll next be in touch to present a design, I go home, and I park it. I shelve everything, for I know that everything I've taken on board will be percolating somewhere in the deepest reaches of my brain, which like you, can never be still. I'll then fill it with a huge amount of anything else - I'll even empty the dishwasher which I agree is the most boring thing ever - well ironing too. The 'avoidance' becomes extreme: the week before Christmas I ripped up a carpet, painted a room and threw out a bed that was annoying me. This was all preferable to sitting down with a nice cup of tea in a warm room and doing what I was supposed to be doing. But sure enough, a few days later, I sat down with a pen and paper, and as if by magic, the garden design happened. It just did.
It's kind of the same with writing - not my Substack weirdly - but books. I've got a book deadline looming, so in order to avoid that, I've accepted a commission to write an article about some gardens that I need to know a lot more about, and therefore requires a week of research that I don't have time for. But I'll do this, anything to avoid that book deadline. But then before I do this, I just need to develop that idea for a musical that I have........
Yes, that's it, Jo. The acceptance of yourself and your procrastination allied to an absence of panic is what gets stuff done in the end. I find my procrastinating self a rather charming and chaotic fellow who would prefer to find new chords on a guitar than put a basket of washing out on an excellent drying day.
You've hit upon an important aspect of procrastination. It's easy to do things we enjoy because the feelings associated with them are positive and we want more of them.
You've put into words exactly what I've been doing for the past few days. Revising? Nah, that sounds hard and scary. Literally anything else except the assignments which are also due? You're on.
I'm saving this post to remind me to "get on with it". Once the exams are done, I can loosen up. A bit.
Yes. Just think how good loosening up will feel when you know you have completed what needs to be done.
Inspirational, Graham. As far as my garden design, I've come to understand procrastination as the feeling of essential mental preparation. It's become a valuable part of the design process, and I cant design any other way - it's the system that works. I visit a site, I take it all in, I chat with the clients over copious cups of tea, I get to know their likes and dislikes and I get know them as well as the land. I tell the client when I'll next be in touch to present a design, I go home, and I park it. I shelve everything, for I know that everything I've taken on board will be percolating somewhere in the deepest reaches of my brain, which like you, can never be still. I'll then fill it with a huge amount of anything else - I'll even empty the dishwasher which I agree is the most boring thing ever - well ironing too. The 'avoidance' becomes extreme: the week before Christmas I ripped up a carpet, painted a room and threw out a bed that was annoying me. This was all preferable to sitting down with a nice cup of tea in a warm room and doing what I was supposed to be doing. But sure enough, a few days later, I sat down with a pen and paper, and as if by magic, the garden design happened. It just did.
It's kind of the same with writing - not my Substack weirdly - but books. I've got a book deadline looming, so in order to avoid that, I've accepted a commission to write an article about some gardens that I need to know a lot more about, and therefore requires a week of research that I don't have time for. But I'll do this, anything to avoid that book deadline. But then before I do this, I just need to develop that idea for a musical that I have........
Yes, that's it, Jo. The acceptance of yourself and your procrastination allied to an absence of panic is what gets stuff done in the end. I find my procrastinating self a rather charming and chaotic fellow who would prefer to find new chords on a guitar than put a basket of washing out on an excellent drying day.
Washing on an excellent drying day gives me far too much pleasure. So satisfying.
But the dishes? That project plan update? So hard.
You've hit upon an important aspect of procrastination. It's easy to do things we enjoy because the feelings associated with them are positive and we want more of them.