Week 6 - Task 2

So this article was hilarious to read, particularly one section of it, "Active participation in anything tends to give you a positive attitude toward that activity; inactivity helps acquire an unfavorable attitude. In other words, the reason you dislike calculus is because it's hanging over your head, worrying you. Since you haven't acquires skills in it, you can't do the assignments, so why try? Also, there's a test coming up soon, and you MUST do well on it -- except you know you can't." This is a remarkably accurate summary of my life at the moment. I haven't managed to catch up on my calculus homework since being sick, therefore I don't want to do it since I don't know how to, and not only that, but I had a quiz today and felt completely defeated even trying to study for it because I hadn't finished the homework on the basics that the quiz took into account. This article was also excellent at describing my own personal tendencies towards procrastination. 1. I am a perfectionist, to the extreme. If I feel like I'm not doing something perfectly, I tend to become so frustrated with myself that I will just walk away and ignore it so that "it goes away" leaving me with a horrible deadline. 2. Even when I procrastinate, I tend to get A's, so there's that reinforcement that they talked about. I totally justify leaving papers till the last minute because I know I'm good at writing, and I always get an A, last minute or not. Therefore, it's easy to say "Oh, just relax. The paper will be a breeze anyways." 3. I am HORRIBLE about coming home, knowing I should start on homework, but deciding to relax for "a while" which always becomes the entire evening. 4. I also always know what I need to be doing, it's not that I have an issue with time management or like I don't know what I should be doing and when. It's simply that I have an insanely difficult time motivating myself to do things that I don't want to do. (For example, I'm avoiding writing an english essay by doing this homework because I'd rather do this than that, ta dah!)

So after reading through the paper I found one suggestion that I think will be a great help to me, and that is the "Five Minute Plan."  "Work on something for just five minutes. At the end of five minutes, switch to something else if you want. Chances are, you'll get involved enough to keep going."  This is sooooooo part of my issue! I avoid assignments largely due to the fact that I simply don't want to sit down and work on them for the next few hours.  As a result, motivating myself to start it is IMPOSSIBLE.  This plan seems perfect! Because normally if I at least start on something, I end up completing it because I get wrapped up in the subject and don't want to lose my train of thought.  However, using a 5 minute rule means that at least if after 5 minutes (or maybe 10) I'm completely over the work, I can let it go.  This does require that I use the rule way ahead of the deadline, however, that's fine.  If I have a week to complete something and use the 5 minute rule once without following things to completion, it's no big deal.  I can use it the next day and maybe even the next so that I'll still end up completing the work on time!  BRILLIANT idea, and one that I'm actually applying to writing my english essay this evening!