Coping with procrastination?

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I'm a terrible procrastinator, which my therapist feels is partly due to my anxiety and perfectionism, since small tasks often feel overwhelming, so I avoid doing them. I've been working on it super-hard this year, but I'm making only slow progress. I also have difficulty getting back on track if I've been interrupted. Does anyone else have this problem? Does anyone have any good tips for dealing with procrastination?

I don't bother trying to make friends or date anymore...I feel I'm lining up for falure...

I am so not a procrastinator.

Tim

I have the same problem, but I don't really know how to solve it.
With me, if it's something like homework, even when I want to do it, I keep putting it off, so the best thing to do is for me to just get all my stuff out and start as soon as possible, because the longer I put it off, the more likely I am to keep on putting it off.
Or if it's one big thing I have to do, like organising all the crap in my room before it gets redecorated, I find it helps to separate it into a fee different jobs, then tackle one at each time. Planning things like that tends to make it a lot less overwhelming. At least, that helps with me but it's still I big problem I need to sort out.
I hope you come up with a good solution.

Is this related to procrastination? I don't get the connection, although I'm sorry you're having a tough time.

Thanks! Yeah, I have had some success with breaking tasks down. Good advice!

I too have trouble starting things even when I *do* want to do them, or even when I'm excited about them. And I am more likely to continue to put something off if I have been already- the closer the deadline looms, the more the anxiety increases, and the more overwhelming the task seems.

Last edited by LostInSpace on 27 Apr 2007, 5:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

You're lucky. My mom and my brother don't procrastinate either.

I find lists help - super-detailed in-order-of-priority lists of everything I need to do. Otherwise I stall, procrastinate, waste too much time on one thing and never get started on the next, or things just fall off my radar and get forgotten.

I'm gonna type a reply to this procrastination thread.... .... .. . . . . . . . soon

Do you ever make lists, and then get frustrated when you can't accomplish everything on them? That happens to me. Then I get discouraged, and ignore the list. Although, usually I make a list of what I want to do that day, and I totally underestimate how long everything will take. I guess if I did make a long list of everything and prioritized it, maybe I wouldn't get discouraged, because I wouldn't have given myself an unrealistic time limit.

Cool. I can't wait to get your input.

That was my story for a long time. Prioritising helps.... A number beside everything in the order it needs doing but reassure yourself that only 1-5 really need to be done today. My lists tend to have absolutely everything on them, even stuff like "pay surgeon before Sept 12" when it's still March, just so I don't forget! Then, if you do get some speed up and find you've polished off 1-12 you've got a head start on tomorrow, but as long as you stumble through those top five, you're doing OK.

And interspersing easy, quick jobs with long hard slogs works too. Don't try to force yourself to go straight from writing 1,000 words of a thesis onto finishing off a funding proposal for work. Allow yourself an hour to brush the cat or something in between those two.

Remember, he who hesitates....waits.

Hmm, that sounds like it might be helpful. I'll have to try that.

I'll get back to you on this.....