On Procrastinating

I've procrastinated something awful this academic year. Terrible terrible carry on altogether. There's an awful lot floating about the internet with regards to procrastination things like this or this, among the more humorous offerings. It's often touted as an anxiety thing and I can believe it.

You see for me procrastination is something of a vicious cycle. It goes like this: Stu has some sort of thing to do, Stu feels he may fail to do this, Stu finds more immediate things to be "busy" with, Stu has less time to do the thing, Stu freaks out about lack of time to do the thing. Rinse and repeat. It's painful. I've done this for a long time.

Today, rather than beating myself up about it like I usually do, I thought I'd take a step forward for once. Here's the step, you're reading it. I've been meaning, no I guess waiting for permission from some unknown source, to write a new post for ages. This is me giving myself permission to do this, by doing it.

So I'm also going to audit my current projects, something I've avoided for some time for fear of freaking out. I feel it's a first step towards getting the stuff I need do, done.

1. 3000 word ish thesis proposal for my Ed. Doc. substantive topic.

2. 5000 word ish chapter draft on internet uses in gifted education. Luckily I have 1000 done.

3. Teacher and student hand books for an App Dev course for Secondary Schools.

4. Leadership and work observations for a leadership and organisational effectiveness assignment.

5. Research on evidence based practice paper.

So for next Friday I have the following goals:

Must

1. First draft of proposal.

2. 1 full project written up for the handbooks.

3. 3-5 papers for book chapter read and critiqued.

Should

1. 2000 more words for the chapter.

2. 3-5 papers for evidence based practice paper read and critiqued.

3. Observation booked.

Could

1. 3-5 papers read and critiqued for leadership assignment.

2. 1000 words for leadership paper.

3. Second project for handbooks written up.

I'll check back in a week and see how I did.