Week One: Time Strategies of a Procrastination Queen

Most weeks, I really don't know how I get everything done. I am definitely guilty of having more bad habits than good when it comes to doing my work.
I procrastinate a lot. At one point, I think I even wrote nearly 10,000 words (a whole fifth of my longest novel) in one week. After a lot of analyzing, I have broken my reasons for procrastinating into three categories because my best bet for combating my procrastination depends on why I'm avoiding the work in the first place.

1. "I don't feel like it." 
Easily the most common category for procrastinators, this is the one I fall into about twenty-five percent of the time. I'll often pretend I deserve a break and read or watch videos on YouTube before finally getting my act together hours after I started a task.

2. "I'm scared of doing it."
Most of my specific task procrastination falls into this category. Things like sending emails, making phone calls, writing discussion posts, or other similar forms of communication can give me a lot of anxiety. I worry over what to say, how the other person will reply, or simply whether or not I'm doing something properly. While this usually only affects specific tasks, this is my most dangerous kind of procrastination because I will avoid the activity until I garner enough courage or I'll simply not do it at all.

3. "But I should do this first."
My final form of procrastination is delaying or rationalizing the activity away. I'll often decide that while I really should be doing one thing, working on a novel I'm already ahead on is more important. I can rationalize not doing my Japanese homework right away by wanting to "take advantage" of being in the mood to write. I do this around thirty percent of the time with anything from "I should eat" to "I should really have a two hour phone call with my mom in which I read while we enjoy mutual silence."

Fighting the Procrastination Plague
My time management strategies change for whichever category I fall into. For the most part, the easiest way to get myself to do something is a bribe.

If I get all of my work done or doing something I'm afraid of doing, I'll give myself a piece of cookie cake or watch a video I really wanted to watch. Unfortunately so far this semester, I have only ended up in a black hole of constantly watching videos, and I haven't had time to run to Target to buy a cookie cake. But that's honestly my best bet, especially for motivating myself through procrastination types one and two. My other way to fight my fear is to talk to or be with someone else while I do the task I find frightening. I will often talk to my roommates while I send troubling emails or call my mom when I submit work. For my third type of procrastination, I usually concentrate on making a list of what I have to get done and slowly checking it off. Sometimes I can motivate myself and manage, but for the most part, my motivation has to be an external reward like the "How to Beat Procrastination" article suggested. However asking myself two out of the four questions in the "Four Questions to Help You Overcome Procrastination" article would just make me more stressed.

So for me, it really depends on what I'm trying to do. I'm not too worried about this class because the work seems fun to me. I love reading and writing so I will most likely be using the work for this class as procrastination for other classes. If I end up procrastinating for this class though, I will need to make sure I don't run out of cookie cake.

Image Information: "Birthday cake, I mean cookie" by StarsApart.