Procrastination

[kitanzi]

Hi. My name is Larissa, and I'm a procrastinator.

I've always been a procrastinator, but lately I'm more aware of it - maybe because I'm doing it more, with less excuse than I used to have. I procrastinate on things I know perfectly well that I need to do, things that I know will make my own life better even, but I just can't bring myself to get them done. It feels like a heavy weight of deliberate shirking, dragging me down until I'm just short of actual pain over it, and THEN I do something about it. I have no idea why I procrastinate so much. Some are obvious, like paperwork or housework. Some are things that I know will make me feel better in the long run but are tedious or unpleasant in the short run, like exercise. Some are actually things I'd like, like continuing email conversations with friends, but I don't seem to get to them anyhow for one reason or another, and those are really baffling.

I don't particularly expect me to make sense, I guess, but I can't help trying to figure it out. *shrug*

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Ah! Comment has ceased being a non-function and has deigned to be a function.
Thank you, Comment. Now, does I have anything to say? :)

a) This "procrastinator" has sent me four e-mails over the last 48 hours. Hmmm.
[Yo there, you complainin'?] Uh, good point. You lend us grace, domna. :)

b) Professional opinion - you're unhappy about something. You may not know what,
or you may know and not feel able to face it. Symptomatology - A certain young filksinger
left this neck of the woods for southern pastures about a year ago. She needed a job
down there, so she went out and got one. In a week or two! Tentative diagnosis -
A certain young filksinger still has that job, and is bored shitless with it. (Sorry about
the technicalese there [g]). Suggested treatment - perhaps this certain young filksinger
should gird up those loins of hers, go out and Get A New Job, damnit! It might help. :)

Doctor Which
Take 2 aspirin and I'll bill you in the morning. I accept barter.

[bardling.livejournal.com]

Doctor Which has a point with the unhappiness - and with the job as a probable reason behind that.

Big reasons for unhappiness that "I can't do anything about" often have a knock-on effect on smaller things, by draining away happiness (and thus energy and motivation to do anything) and by inspiring more moments of "it doesn't really matter" as a feeling in the here and now.
Other influences could be low self discipline, where the tedious-but-will-have-positive-effect-in-the-long-term things are concerned. It is much harder to set up a routine than to just be in one and stick with it, and it takes awhile before anything becomes a routine.

I find sometimes lists can be helpful, or reminders from yourself to yourself (notes on the fridge/mirror/front-door - whereever you *see* them and might actually react to them).
Sometimes the part of me that just *doesn't want to deal with it right now* just has to be heeded and accepted for awhile - this works better, if I can manage to just accept that I won't do X for this amount of time or not until Y, i.e. stop feeling annoyed/guilty with myself over procrastinating for this period and give it to me to do other nice things I want to do during it first instead.
Sometimes it helps to trick myself, to arrange for company to do X with.

And of course sometimes nothing helps but the deadline/pressure from the outside...

*hugs* from a fellow procrastinator who has more and less successful times of dealing with her procrastination tendencies...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

I'll respond to this a bit later.

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about going to Procrastinators Anonymous but I keep putting it off til next month.

I find I procrastinate most when I have major stuff I don'wanna'do hanging over me. This is one of the reasons I flunked out of the Zoo.

I'm reasonably happy with my current job. I find myself much more able to cope with housework as a result, but I can still be periodically lame on communication.