hi folks

Hope this is the right forum for introductions..

My name is Ben. I'm a student in Newfoundland, Canada.

I just wanted to say to Pro, first of all, thanks and congratulations for making this site. I've just started looking at it now (got here from a Wikipedia link).

I'd categorize my own procrastination as chronic though maybe not severe. I'm pretty functional, but it always (10+ years) dogs me and cuts into my productivity. I've started to think about it more because I'm leaning towards doing more academic work which involves lots of writing.. which I've always had a really hard time with. Especially because my father was a writer and struggled with procrastination his whole life. Figure I better tackle this now or else...

Pro, your framing of procrastination as being (for at least some people) fundamentally about compulsive avoidance rings very true to me. (Though I haven't noticed myself to have an addictive personality in other respects.)

Lately it seems like its been a stress reaction, too. I'll have procrastinated doing something important until the last minute. But then even at that moment of truth I'll push it and push it.. I'll be procrastinating to deal with the stress of previous procrastination .. (Hell, I'm doing that right now... must... work.. on paper...).. Mind you, I still procrastinate when I'm not stressed, but it's less sick and desperate and nihilistic!

Also, the point about interrupting "time binging" interests me. I've experimented with using timers a bit when trying to write. Usually doing 50 minutes on and then enforcing 10 minute breaks so as to make myself more conscious of time passing. Breaking it into chunks and assigning goals for each chunk rather than having this endless expanse of time ("a whole day!", "a whole evening!") ahead of me that I can fritter away.. I think I do have time management problems on top of procrastination.

Anyway, I'm hoping to look through the articles and forums quite a bit more. A lot of it sounds more like me than other stuff on procrastination I've read.

Back to work!

Nonplus