Check out this book called the now habit: https://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/1585425524
Basically, the advice they would give you is to remember over the next 4 months that writing up your dissertation is not the only thing you have to do. In fact, it’s healthy and good to spend more time with friends. From personal experience I can say you’ll probably only get 4 or so hours a day into writing.
Regarding the imposter syndrome, it’s best to try self-compassion. Honestly dog, literally everyone feels like their PhD thesis is shit work by the end. And if you’re thinking, “but mine really is garbage and I did no work” then I can assure you that everyone always feels this way. Sure, there are some people who feel great about their work, but most don’t. They feel as though they accomplished nothing and should have done more.
So first of all, relax. Cs earn degrees. As long as you're not outright failing then you're passing and doing fine. In the job market absolutely no one cares about your grades on a test. They just want to see you hold a degree. So relax.
Second, check and see if your school offers therapy. Make an appointment today. You'll immediately feel better, I guarantee it as it's the first step towards improvement.
Finally, what really helped me understand then master my procrastination was a book called "The NOW Habit" by Dr. Neil Fiore. The "Unschedule" is worth the price of the book alone, but there's so much good stuff in there.
I read a book called “The Now Habit” which really helped me. I’m not sure it’s for everyone, but I found the methods super helpful. https://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/1585425524/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+now+habit&qid=1598593520&sr=8-1
You meant "how do I stop procrastinating".
Actually LPT for you - check this out from Amazon or your local library. This book outlines why people procrastinate, how people do it, makes you become aware of your habits, and some tips on how to resolve that problem. Personally I like this book over other "5 tricks to get things done etc." since it actually digs into the roots.
https://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/1585425524
I think the biggest thing to tackle is the negative self-talk. It doesn't matter how successful or unsuccessful you are if you constantly treat yourself as a failure and let others who call you a failure get to you. You are not a failure; you have made mistakes and failed. You are not garbage; you might have taken actions that aren't that great, but that doesn't make you a garbage person. Don't let your sense of self-worth get tied up in your schooling, and don't let others tear you down.
If you can, I'd recommend attending therapy, if only as an outlet for your thoughts and feelings. I went to therapy and it changed my life. Don't worry if people make fun of you for it; you're making you and better you, don't let others get to you.
One of the best books I found for dealing with negative self-talk and how it affects your work is The Now Habit. I'd highly recommend it!
Zu 3: Neil Fiore - The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play. Ich weiß leider nicht, obs das auf Deutsch gibt, aber es ist auf Englisch recht einfach zu lesen. Der geht das recht systematisch an. Witzigerweise darfst du erstmal ~2 Wochen weitermachen, aber dabei "Buch führen". Immer dann, wenn du dich bei Aufschieberitis ertappst, dann schreibst du das in eine Liste. Wann? Welche Aufgabe? Wovor hast du Angst? etc...
Ich fands gut; es ist wirklich eine strategische Rangehensweise. Als letzten Witz: Kauft sich einer ein Buch über Prokrastination und liest es dann nicht. Man kann gut mit dem Buch arbeiten, das Ergebnis fällt aber nicht vom Himmel :)
Zu 1): Streich dir nicht selber die Geldquelle. Nie. Jetzt biste Prokrastinator mit wenig Geld, danach biste Prokrastinator ohne Geld. Letzteres sind noch trübere Aussichten; deinem Selbstwertgefühl wird das bestimmt keinen Boost geben!
Und bleib bei deiner kleinen Liste mit den Tageszielen! Das ist eine sehr gute Idee und die Bewältigung gelingt dir anscheinend auch. Kein Scheiss - ich find das Klasse!
I'd recommend reading Niel Fiore's The Now Habit... While I don't use everything he talks about in his book, it definitely gave me a better perspective on why I procrastinate and how I can change it in the long run.
There are many, such as fear of failure and/or fear of success. It depends on the individual, but often chronic procrastination is the surfacing of these far larger issues. A great book that opened my eyes to recognizing and correcting these aspects is The Now Habit by Dr. Neil Fiore.
I think it's the same reason we procrastinate anything that'll both fun and good for us. It's because we tell ourselves we should, and that we're lousy for not doing it. Then we escape and mute out these negative feelings with something that instantly makes us feel better.
(Yes, I'm taking all this from The Now Habit. What of it?)
Leisure reading is supposed to be fun, so take it off your to-do list. Then, just keep reading. If something doesn't grab you, put it down and pick up something else. Soon, something will take. If it's not a classic, who cares? It'll still be good for you.
If you feel one of your larger problems is procrastination, I would suggest picking up The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. It's a very good book for figuring out why you procrastinate and how easily you can overcome it. I picked it up a few years back because I was similar in that, I procrastinate constantly. Because of that, my work suffered. So hopefully that helps ya out a bit. Good luck.
I think it's the same anxiety because you fear the daunting task of starting actually watching all 79 episodes. But collecting them sure was fun, right? I love Star Trek TOS, but even I would be daunted by the prospect of watching all 79 episodes because it seems like such a giant undertaking. Go get The Now Habit if you want the best resource on understanding and dealing with all forms of procrastination.
Hey frient,
I have the same problem. I think every human does; the difference with the people you see specialized in one thing is that they had a certain impetus when the going got rough, when they hit the inevitable plateau where the learning process slows.
This is difficult but not impossible to learn to get passed. Find your passion and set goals. If it's weed, learn to do other things than smoke it: bake, grow, work in a dispensary, improve joint rolling skills. Set big goals with intermediary small goals so you don't lose motivation. Abandon goals you care less about or have been languishing over for years.
I recently read an amazing book on the subject of procrastination, The Now Habit. I "highly" recommend it. Much of life is a game you play with your mind. Paying attention to your thoughts and how you mentally deal with situations throughout your day is the secret to improving your life.
Good luck to all my fellow Ents out there.
First of all, stop beating on yourself you already know what your issues are so take steps and put things in place to overcome them:
Write your goals and plans down, committing them to paper makes them seem more real to you and you will want to put some effort into them.
There are lots of articles and books on how to overcome procrastination before it leads to other issues like depression. I found this article particularly interesting but by no way, a one-size-fits.
Some Apps that give you some great tool/tips and techniques to overcome procrastination, anxiety, and depression which was developed from cognitive behavioral therapy, there is virtue map that put together a step-by-step program based on your behavioral pattern, and holds you accountable to your set goals and link you with support groups and other tools. Also, there is the fabulous which has some similar objectives and methods but they appear to leave you to adjust and figure things out yourself, and I guess it's really up to your willingness to change.
Books like the now habit and eat that frog are good choices if reading suits you better, and there are lots of videos and how to’s, and r/GetMotivated of course to give you support.
I wish you well on your path to a better you, hope you get started soon.
The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Based on actual psychological science. Can only recommend it.
No, it's a fair question! I expected much harsher criticism, to be honest. XD
I think it comes down to how much you value time and what you want to prioritise. I won't go into too much detail about my private life, but believe me when I say I understand how tough it can be!
In a relationship, a lot of this comes down to communication. If you know what you want for yourself and each other, it's easier to communicate that clearly to your partner.
One thing that has helped me with this sort of thing is my love of planning and ruthless scheduling. Most importantly, scheduling the things that I want to do before my "responsibilities". It makes a difference. If you want to make time for your family/significant other, then block time out for that. Block time out for studying Japanese (even if it's only an hour a day) if it's important to you. If you make a habit out of it, once you start communicating to your partner/friends that you study Japanese from 8-10 pm every evening, they will eventually understand that that's just what you do between 8 and 10 pm. Of course, it's harder when your partner is busy as well, but I guess life throws it's challenges, and you just have to deal with them sometimes.
There's a couple of books I read a while ago that you may find useful. One is The Now Habit, and the other is Deep Work. Both of them have helped me a lot in how I prioritise and think about time spent doing what I want to do. Perhaps you could give them a read.
I hope that helps.
To maintain a productive work-life balance, I organise my work (and hobbies) using the five different "styles" of management - priority, time, behavioural, energy, and efficiency management. The two books that helped me deal with this are "The Now Habit" by Neil Fiore and "Deep Work" by Cal Newport:
The Now Habit is a book about procrastination. It breaks down procrastination and teaches you to deal with enjoying the guilt-free play. It teaches you how to manage your habits and be efficient with your time.
Deep work is a book about focus. What I really took away from the book though, was how to choose which problems are worth solving and which are not. I also learnt that while it's important to have goals, it's more important to know why I have those goals.
I used to feel the same way you described in your post before I started implementing some of the methods from the books I linked. I think that you may need to first work out why you think you're a mess and how to deal with that guilt instead of just forcing yourself improve.
Btw, even if you don't check these out the books I linked, you should definitely check out time blocking and google methods that feature the five styles of management styles I mentioned.
I hope that helps!
This is nice tutorial on using the Unschedule which is part of The Now Habit by Dr. Neil Fiore
This book, in combination with therapy to overcome my negative self-image and self-talk helped me a lot.
I have a book recommendation which has really helped me.
Very similar situation, minus being a student and plus having a new job that is closed over the holidays. Beyond the new-to-me holiday break, my new job gives me a lot more free time (and latitude to come up with cool stuff at work) than my last role so my brain is spinning with all the stuff I could do.
I frequently recommend The Now Habit which I've found to be very useful for its concrete recommendations with how to winnow down what you are trying to accomplish and get out of the emotional quagmire of wanting to do stuff and into the objective state of having done stuff, but I also recently finished Self Discipline in 10 Days, which is similar in its practical recommendations and also available for free online.
What all are you trying to do? It is a good idea to sit down, make a broad list of what you are hoping to accomplish and review that. Ideally you are able to take that list then and break down each item as far as needed to have tasks that are imminently doable - that is, you could realistically do the task and cross it off your list at one time - BUT don't get too bogged down in making this perfect and having your list reflect everything perfectly (e.g., "Brush teeth" is probably sufficient without "Get toothbrush out of cabinet", "Put toothpaste on toothbrush" but "Clean kitchen" may be too broad - don't hesitate to add "Get out cleaning supplies", "Wipe backsplash", "Do dishes", etc.) You are allowed to have as many tasks as you need to stay on track - if you get stuck, breaking them down further can be an amazingly useful way to move forward so don't worry if they're not perfect when you first jot down your list. Letting it be a dynamic tool you interact with throughout the process can be shockingly functional.
It's also helpful to set some defaults - if I don't really know how long a task is going to take, I usually default my time estimate to 30 minutes. You can set a timer and check in after that time to see where you are and if you over-estimated or under-estimated. This sort of takes from the Pomodoro technique which I really love for making longer projects that require multiple work sessions seem doable. If it seems like a half hour is too much but the task is still imminently doable, you can also set a stopwatch and see how long it actually takes - I was amused when I set a stop watch for cleaning my cat's litterbox, which I had felt like was a fairly significant "to do" and carried enough emotional weight for me want to procrastinate on and avoid doing it, and discovered it only takes 2 minutes. Similarly for exercise - I have found that I can get a workout done in about 20-30 minutes but I can also take 60-90 minutes to get the same amount of actual exercise done if I dick around picking out what I'm going to do and browsing websites on exercise science or whatever.
The estimation has helped me a lot - even if you're inaccurate (and I've found myself to be surprisingly good at guessing even if I feel like I have no idea). Sometimes if I have a bunch of stuff to get done in a day, I will throw a list down on paper and add time estimates (I try to not have a segment shorter than 30 min so if I have like "Do the cat's litterbox" and "Empty the dishwasher", etc. I will batch several of those into one group to do at once.) Then I add everything up to see how long this would all actually take me. This can be really harrowing - I have ended up with to-do lists that seemed reasonable at first but after putting some estimated times on them, ended up looking like a day with 8 hours of pure work. Scale back as necessary to what you feel comfortable with (because you feeling comfortable and like the goals you set out for yourself are easy/accomplishable is key to actually doing them instead of succumbing to watching trash TV in sweatpants) or if it's less time than you thought, get the stuff done, note any guesstimates that were way off base for next time, and enjoy your free time.
Hope this helps!
I was recommended this book some time ago; I might need to read it again. :)
http://www.amazon.com/Now-Habit-Overcoming-Procrastination-Guilt-Free/dp/1585425524
I thought this way for a long time, too. Read The Now Habit if you're ready to stop procrastinating.
For sure, see my original comment, I've edited it. Go get The Now Habit. I can't recommend it enough.
If you're in to books you might want to check out this book. It helped me a lot when I was struggling with procrastination.
In the beginning you definitely want to set small goals that you're sure you can achieve and that doesn't take a long time to do, maybe 10 minutes or so.
At the moment you most likely associate goal setting with a negative feeling, maybe you've felt failure or gotten negative feedback over something you did in the past.
Make sure to achieve the goals you set and make sure to reward yourself for achieving them. That way you will reprogram yourself to think positively about goals.
Good luck!