PROCRASTINATOR'S CODE

How do we get into our guilt-ridden cycles of procrastination?

Here's a "Top Ten" list of the self-imposed rules that sabotage our productivity:

1) My work must be perfect.
2) It's safer to do nothing than to take a risk and fail.
3) If my work gets critical feedback I've failed.
4) I shouldn't stop until every sentence is just right.
5) I shouldn't start until I know exactly what I'm going to say.
6) If I expose my work, people will see that I am inadequate.
7) I need to do more research before I start writing.
8) I've already "blown it" by not producing more, so why bother starting.
9) If I make myself miserable enough maybe I'll begin working.
10) If I'm not working I should punish myself with guilt.

These rules are adapted from my favorite book about Procrastination by Burka and Yuen.

I resonate with the many complaints in blogs about the painful fears that lead to procrastination.  I liked the response of New Kid on the Hallway to a post by Academom on procrastination.  New Kid wrote:

"I procrastinate all the time, too, and I hate it. It was especially bad in the long boring never-ending middle of dissertation writing, when I had nothing but myself to keep me honest. I sometimes think, though, that 1) procrastination is endemic to academia (all us perfectionist types running around) and 2) that although we all procrastinate, a lot of the time it's in that "to create the MOST PERFECT prospectus/chapter/paper/whatever, I should have started 6 months ago, written for 3 hours every day, explored every source on the subject that exists, and have had meaningful conversations with great scholars on the subject. Since I didn't, I AM POND SCUM" kind of way - that is, we procrastinate in our own heads according to the high standards we have for ourselves, but we nonetheless manage to get everything done anyway. Which is at heart the most important thing.

I still wish I didn't procrastinate so much, though. "

I agree with New Kid that academics are especially prone to procrastination when they are trying to write a Magnum Opus instead of what I call a Marketable Career Builder.  It is also common for the grad students I work with to think that the longer their dissertation is taking them, the better it should be.  And it is hard to get rid of this pernicious myth -- no matter how often one hears the truth repeated: The best dissertation is a done dissertation.

Please, I tell struggling dissertators, remember the well-known joke:

"What do you call the author of the worse dissertation that has ever been defended in the history of your department?"

"DOCTOR!"

Comments

[Daybreak]

Oh, procrastination is good. Definitely good. Gives you time to think by taking your mind off of the immediate task at hand. Then, bam!, you catch the insight and run with it.

Well, that's how I justify it anyway!

\*/

[Daybreak]

Of course, you can only justify procrastination if you do manage to get something done.

Mostly I think we just have to stop beating ourselves up about procrastination, so that we don't feel so guilty about it we can't get anything done.

\*/

[Academic Coach]

Procrastination in small doses = creative incubation?

O.K., I'll go with that.

And, yes, avoiding guilt is a good goal.

In my case, in the past few weeks, it has not been procrastination, but blogination. Same difference.

[ianqui]

For me, it's been spending a lot of time on peak oil and posting at The Oil Drum. I believe it's obvious, but my field has nothing to do with geology and the economics of petroleum. And last summer I spend a lot of time obsessing about the election.

It's amazing that my procrastination is also academic. I'm constantly finding more interesting fields than my own....

Let's just say I find the summer to be particularly difficult. I used to be good at managing my free time, but I'm getting worse and worse as it becomes more imperative for me to produce.

[Daybreak]

Ianqui's comment is on mark for me as well. But I think finding other fields more interesting is fruitful for thinking about my own field: Can I make my own field interesting in the way I find these other fields interesting? Can I appropriate ideas and ways of thinking from these other fields? That is, I think these means of academic procrastination are often means of working toward interdisciplinarity, exercise for thinking outside the box.

What's really interesting to me is how much easier it is to form an interdisciplinary community blogging than IRL. I suppose a lot of it has to do with schedules. Blogtime is done on your own time. There is no schedule, no formal meeting time. You can have conversations without all parties needing to be present at the same place and time.

\*/

[La Lecturess]

Speaking of the best dissertaion (or article or book or whatever) being the done one--when I learned in my first year in grad school that "perfect" comes from the Latin "perfectus," meaning, "done," I went around reassuring myself and other people that every completed seminar paper was a PERFECT one.

(Not that this stops my own procrastinating, but it's always nice to have etymological back-up for claims about the goodness of doneness . . .)

[stewgad]

Your list of reasons why we procrastinate is truly frightening. How did you know? Did you peek inside my brain? I think I'm going to have to print this one out and tape a copy to every surface in my house, and perhaps one to my forehead for good measure.

And, huge thanks La Lecturess for the etymology - how fabulous and liberating!

[Academic Coach]

Thanks, stewgad, I write, think, coach a lot about the bugaboo of academic procrastination.
For example: http://www.successfulacademic.com/success_tips/Overcome_procrastination.htm

[timna]

Interesting list. At first I read it and thought that mostly the one about more research applied to me. But then I've not resubmitted a couple of articles lately and that would be under the "safer to do nothing" category. Didn't think I was there, but sure looks like it now.
Thanks!

[Lori]

A dear friend pointed out to me a few months back that my reading a book about procrastination was 1)one of the more clever ways to procrastinate that she'd observed in me, and 2)very common among dissertating grad students.

I hate her.