Has anyone ever overcome procrastination?

[LovePrevails]

Has this ever happened? Has anyone gone from finding it difficult to approach meaningful tasks to just getting into it all day every day? I have never seen a single person do it. I've seen them get slightly better, or go through phases, but i've never see someone sluggish with tasks become and extremely proactive person.

 

If you have or you know anyone who has lets here the story.

[Zava]

I can’t think of anyone personally or even anyone offhand but I’m sure they must exist. Maybe it’s because we’re not surrounding ourselves with the right people. Maybe such a change is a rare event or that such metamorphosis takes place quietly, privately, and so slowly that the change isn’t really noticeable? Anyway, I think it’s an interesting question and I’d be interested in reading other replies.

[powersquash]

I'm a procrastinator. I have this huge issue doing just about anything "on time". I finish work paperwork last minute (usually well past the last minute mark), I put off going to the grocery store until I've been eating left-overs for a few days, I don't pay bills until THE last day and often a day late which incurs late fees. Its not as though I don't have the money for the bills, I just keep putting it off because I don't want to send the check or call the automated number to do so.

 

I've often wondered why I do this, there is no added bonus to being late with everything. Often, whenever I get caught turning things in late or not having completed tasks that needed to be done at an earlier date, I have extreme anxiety about what others will think, say, or do because of it. There have been periods that I've stayed on top of everything but with no discern able reason as to why and not for very long periods of time either.

 

I'm pretty sure this does not at all help you and, in fact, is just the behavior you're questioning can be fixed. I hope you can find some use out of this, even if just insider info ^^

[stephenscorzo]

I don't have any understanding my bearing as to why I can freak out about school and get passing grades, yet procrastinate on diets.

[Drew.]

I've recently noticed a change in my behavior toward certain tasks.

 

The last time that I was in college, I would do assignments last minute. Like, I would get dragged to my mother's place of work at 5am, get a coffee, and work on homework for classes that started in the mid-morning.

 

Now, I'm doing my assignments at least a day before they're due. It's been going on like this for about... five weeks. I'm really baffled and proud. This has literally never happened to me before. I also have made promises to myself about a posting a piece of a story arc every friday until the story is finished. I've managed to keep that consistently rolling for three weeks now, where the writing and typing is done by Friday, and I edit the day of posting.

 

So, what's changed for me? Well, I've started trying to negotiate with myself more. I have strong desires to play video games and watch television, and I also know that there are other activities that may be least pleasant in the moment, but will provide the same or greater rewards. So, I respect the two desires, and I try to find a balance that works.

 

I've also tried working on and improving self-attack. Nothing gets me procrastinating more than shaming myself about procrastinating.

 

Before I start work on something that I don't feel enthused about doing, I remind myself, hey, it's going to suck in the moment, but the benefits of getting it done now far outweigh the benefits of doing it later.

[Panoptic]

I think I have personally seen a significant increase in my own productivity over the last 4 months. I'm assuming you've seen Stef's video on the topic. The first time I watched that video it all made sense to me but it didn't have any effect. Eventually though I really put what he said into play without realizing it at first. I was struggling in college trying to work towards my ECE degree. Eventually my grades got so bad that I was forced to switch majors, so I took the easier route of systems engineering (still engineering though). It just so happened that I enjoyed the material much more (this new major was actually my original choice but my father convinced me to go against my own wishes a few years prior) and since it is generally considered the easier engr major I had a ton of extra free time. All of this was happening around the time I was gaining self-knowledge for the first time and I felt empowered.

 

My old method of attempting to get myself to do things consisted of picking a long term goal (like a career field), figuring out the best things to do to make myself more competitive in order to reach the goal easier (like what technical/project/club experience I could get), and then trying to force myself to do those things. I always planned on doing a TON of things in order to approach my goals but I kept finding myself lost in the reasons why I wanted to do these things in the first place. Deep down I really did not want to do any of these things, I had thoroghly lied to myself and it hadn't worked (it took some serious honesty and guts to figure that one out).

 

Once I switched majors my previous stress disappeared. I also stopped talking to my parents while in school which seems to have done a lot of good, I'm still not sure why. So I essentially had no distractions or stress and I felt as if I could do whatever I please without having to worry about other crap. I began to pursue what interested me, not because I thought I wanted to make a living in those areas but SIMPLY because they were interesting (I tried not to worry about the future and just enjoyed life). Over the course of a few weeks I found a new passion within me for the colonization of space and the advancement of human kind. I joined a space oriented club at my university and joined one of the project teams they had. Within a few months I found myself meeting plenty of like-minded people, making connections, and doing a large proportion of work on this project team, things that I could never get myself to do at any point in the preceding 3 years of college.

 

I think what you have to do is really just do what interests you simply because you find it enjoyable. Stress is an important factor and too much will destroy any ambitions you have. Too much stress is not natural anyway. Once you reduce your stress it should be much easier to clear your head and just do what you enjoy. I actually found my interest in space after sitting around on the computer with nothing to do and going on torrents of Wikipedia searching in my free time. Maybe my interests will even change in the future too, who knows. As long as I am doing something I enjoy at the time. Once you are using your life to do what you want other tasks such as calling your cable provider to get the TV fixed or going to the bank to deal with account issues become much easier.

 

I'm not saying you should not think about/plan your future at all. I think its important to lay out a general plan but to not punish yourself for failing to meet any goals. Use it as a learning experience instead. Remember what Stefan said, "We do not put off that which gives us pleasure." Sometimes I think it helps to fantisize about what your future could be like. I sometimes imagine a "perfect" future where everything goes exactly as planned and I think about all of the possibilities. Idk how good/bad that is but it helps to think about what you would want out of life. It also helps me to get through things that suck in the moment. My classes suck but I imagine how awesome it will be to finally graduate, like what I would do immediately after the last final exam I ever take.

 

I don't think it's possible to go through such a dramatic change that quickly. It takes time. I'm used to putting far too many expectations on myself and so once I began to become more productive I was pretty satisfied with myself for a while. But sometimes things in life get stressful and you will mess it up. I have gone back to procrastination multiple times and I began to beat myself up again then realized what I was doing. I decided to stop beating myself up and use it as a learning experience (something that I must remind myself every time I find myself doing it).

[cynicist]

Has this ever happened? Has anyone gone from finding it difficult to approach meaningful tasks to just getting into it all day every day? I have never seen a single person do it. I've seen them get slightly better, or go through phases, but i've never see someone sluggish with tasks become and extremely proactive person.

 

If you have or you know anyone who has lets here the story.

 

I still have it. I think procrastination is a sign that a part of you is trying to push yourself to do things arbitrarily (have to) while another part is resisting. (resentment) We get trained that way by parents with their arbitrary rules that we try to resist and then continue that pattern of behavior as adults by trying to force ourselves to do things that we think we should be doing. I think the key is retraining ourselves to do what we want instead (or explaining how doing this thing we don't like will allow us to do what we want to later), and reminding ourselves of that continuously, but it's easier said than done. I often find myself thinking that I should do something and then not having a good reason why, it's like catching myself on autopilot. Often when I sit down and take the time to think about what I'm doing and why, it's easier to be motivated but I don't do that often enough.

 

It seems like a skill that I never learned growing up; Since nobody sat down and explained why I should do anything when I was a kid I now have to teach myself how to do that, otherwise I just go on autopilot and try to make myself do stuff like my parents. At least that's how I see it, could be different for others.

 

 

 

So, what's changed for me? Well, I've started trying to negotiate with myself more. I have strong desires to play video games and watch television, and I also know that there are other activities that may be least pleasant in the moment, but will provide the same or greater rewards. So, I respect the two desires, and I try to find a balance that works.

 

Yeah that's how I feel. Like there is still this younger part of me that wants to do certain things, and then other parts of me that want to do other things and I need to negotiate and find a balance between them all or explain how it is in their interest to do something.