Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
hola
i just wanted to say hi.....i don't know where to start
Welcome Orlando
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
Welcome, Orlando!
A good place to start is to post an introduction about yourself on the Intros board in the forum (click the Forum button and you'll see it). And then read the articles on the site (click the Articles button at the top of the page for a list).
There's a post at the top of the check-ins board that explains how that works (most members use that), and there's an online meeting each Sunday. There's info about that on the forum, too.
Any questions, can't find something - just ask!
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Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
pro's CI - 10:35pm (bedtime!!)
I stayed up most of the night last night, then got up early in the morning to work out. That didn't work so well. I felt absolutely horrible all day. I need to get sleep tonight. it's time for me to get ready for bed.
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Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
g'nite pro
have a good sleep.
if only I were in bed!
Naturally I'm still sitting at the computer. But I'm at a stopping point and remembering what an awful day I had today, so I'm getting up now to brush my teeth.
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Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
Recycler CI 8:35pm EST
Hi!
Today: walked, gym, work, paid upcoming insurance bill, advised people who asked about community resources, walked home, stretched, ate dinner, washed/moisturized face, took sponge bath in sink, washed/dried 1 load of clothes, completed budget for March, did budget for April.
This is my second month of budgeting. [Humor]: In March (my first month of budgeting), of 13 budget categories, there was only one where I spent less than estimated lololol. April: Progress not perfection: In April, of the 13 budget categories, I had 6 categories in which I came in under budget. Yay!!!
Also, having completed my second month of budgeting, I spent $700 less in April than I did in March :)
I will try to "behave" with my budget in May, and see how I do.
Tonight: fold, put away clothes from dryer. Brush teeth. Maybe do a little yoga stretching and use massage tool before going to sleep on time.
Have a great night everyone! :)
Recycler
Thank you, gals & guys, for being here! :)
did trivial task; now 2 more, then transition
bookending my trivial, yet dreaded, task done. Thanks all!
now another one.now 3rd minor, dreaded task.
then i have to transition into a new work task. Dont wanna...
c ci 10pm
Thanks wdv. I haven't had success making the dread go away, at least not yet. What has worked for me is surrendering to HiPo. And reading others' stories here. Knowing that other suffer in so similar ways (eg, you, wdv, and just today again, journey with his/her asking for help and the recurring error) makes me feel not so much of a freak for feeling dread at simple tasks, among other things. And knowing that there are people who support me here helps. All this seems to reduce the dread enuf that i can step out in faith, as it were.
I've been thinking about this. I think it may be that the surrender of the self to HiPo reduces the self. I, clement, become less. And if i become less, then everything i am becomes less. Including my dread. or discomfort. or fear.
And my happiness and striving and dreams and even personality become less. That seems like a negative. Happily tho, when i become less, HiPo becomes more. And all joy, love, peace and truth are in HiPo. And they all come flooding in to fill the void i made by the emptying of self. So surrender, which at first feels like and appears to be the death of self, and thus seems not desirable, winds up fulfilling me even more than i could ever by myself.
if that's what's going on, or something like it, it's a neat trick.
I'm interested in how others view this surrender thing. I'm really new to the 12 steps, so for all i know there's a book on it, and it's not anything like what i've said above. Maybe i haven't quite figured it out yet.
I also dont know if this is appropriate forum conversation, too much spiritual detail, but this is where i am recently.
anyway, i didnt mean to write so much.
As for my check-in:
did that 3rd dreaded task, and 2 others.
And forced myself thru my transition to the next task. Many interruptions today (the required kind) so didnt get far, but i broke down my mental barrier, so now i can visualize doing it tomorrow. Even have a rough schedule. So that's good.
One thing at a time
Don't dread the new task, but try to prepare yourself in a constructive manner. In stead of letting the negative associations dominate your mood, take control and face the task on neutral ground. The task is not your enemy, your fears are! Join forces with the task and you will beat the fear!
Try to break down the task, visualizing you doing it, without the usual fears or obstacles you associate with it. If you encounter those obstacles anyway while doing it, trust yourself that you can overcome them. Every second is another chance!
You can do it!
Edge's CI - 4:40PM
I'm really happy because my ar paper turned out very well and my tutor was happy with my results :) At this rate I should ace my test :grin: *knocks on wood*
VIT (Very Important Tasks:
- email Ice tasks, deadline and fee ASAP
- finish finance chapter
What I did today:
x morning med
x finish Ar paper
What I would like to do today:
- buy cat food
- buy kitty litter
- start on marketing chapter
- work on newsletter
- finish my profile and send to Ice
- kitty litter
- evening med
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's CI - 5:35PM
VIT (Very Important Tasks:
- email Ice tasks, deadline and fee ASAP
- finish finance chapter
What I did today:
x morning med
x finish Ar paper
x buy cat food
x buy kitty litter
What I would like to do today:
- start on marketing chapter
- work on newsletter
- finish my profile and send to Ice
- kitty litter
- evening med
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's CI - 6:44PM
One VIT down, one more to go :-)
VIT (Very Important Tasks):
x email Ice tasks, deadline and fee ASAP
- finish finance chapter
What I did today:
x morning med
x finish Ar paper
x buy cat food
x buy kitty litter
x put away laundry
x drive/pick up D to/from class
What I would like to do today:
- start on marketing chapter
- work on newsletter
- finish my profile and send to Ice
- kitty litter
- evening med
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's CI - 7:55PM
Going to start on my finance chapter now.
VIT (Very Important Tasks):
x email Ice tasks, deadline and fee ASAP
- finish finance chapter
What I did today:
x morning med
x finish Ar paper
x buy cat food
x buy kitty litter
x put away laundry
x drive/pick up D to/from class
x kitty litter
What I would like to do today:
- start on marketing chapter
- work on newsletter
- finish my profile and send to Ice
- evening med
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's Closing CI
Going to start on my finance chapter now.
VIT (Very Important Tasks):
x email Ice tasks, deadline and fee ASAP
What I did today:
x morning med
x finish Ar paper
x buy cat food
x buy kitty litter
x put away laundry
x drive/pick up D to/from class
x kitty litter
x evening med
x work on newsletter
Left undone:
- VIT: finish finance chapter
- start on marketing chapter
- finish my profile and send to Ice
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Yay to edge for finishing the paper!
Hurrah!
re: edge's paper!
gratz!
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
Thanks Journey!
Muchly appreciated, hehe :grin:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Thanks Movingalong!
:grin:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Journey 9 am
Happy Hump Day!
Wednesdays are double headers at the gym for me so I've been to spinning and yoga. I could use a nap right now, but instead I'm going to have a cup of coffee and some breakfast!
I've read and responded to new email. Next I need to process the rest of email that came in yesterday. Doing pretty good lately at keeping my inbox under control. That's my email inbox, of course, not the paper inbox. I'm still behind on "the pile" but I haven't added anything new to the pile at least.
So, next - finish email
set MITs for the day.
I only have one meeting, and it's this afternoon.
Journey
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
journey 10:00
not a very auspicious start . . . I've done exactly nothing since my last post. Except get a cup of coffee. Posting to get back on track. Will check back before lunch . . .
Jo
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
journey 11:30
finally asked my brilliant coworker for help on the problem I'm having. She of course figured it out and made me feel stupid. :blush: That didn't sound exactly right, she never TRIES to make me feel stupid. I just feel dumb next to her because she is so smart. I HATE asking for help but I did it anyway and now the project is moving along again, now that she helped me over that obstacle. :grin:
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
Journey 2:15
Transition time - I've wasted half an hour just resisting changing to the new task. Why? 1) it's an error that occurred a couple of weeks ago so I should have already resolved it 2) I'm not sure how to fix it.
But I know that I can research the error messages and contact the vendor if I need to. And, there's always that last resort of *gasp* asking for help. And it REALLY doesn't need to be fixed until June when we do this process again. Get over it, already.
Jo
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
journey 4 pm
I worked on the elusive problem for a while, and requested for some logs to be restored so I can research further. I attending a meeting which was a conference call so I did my personal May budget while I was listening to the call . . .it still ain't pretty but it's done. I dread doing that every month, but I feel so much better when I know the truth about the finances for the month ahead. I used to blindly spend money (and charge recklessly) and not realize I had overspent until the end of the month. Doing much better now, but I have some past damage to repair.
Now I'm going to do some preparation for my monthly review. I haven't actually haad one since January because weenie boy keeps cancelling or calling in sick, but I need to update my progress report anyway.
Jo
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
My compliments on your
My compliments on your financial discipline! I know first-hand how hard it can be to keep making that budget, even though it's tight or vague (I'm a part time freelancer, so I don't have a set income per month). Doing it anyway is very good and brave. The bank is going to do it, so you better too ;-)
Keep that habit alive!
Thanks WDV
I'm trying not to fall back into some old bad habits!
Hey, is it tulip time over there?
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
journey 4 pm ps.
AND I spent 5 min on the "pile" which is sitting in one of my office drawers. About half of it is stuff that just needs to be shredded.
Jo
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
good goin jo
i am that way. I think i've gotten stoopider in my old age, so, unfortunately needing to ask for help has become a more frequent occurrence. This issue is all wrapped around Step 3 for me. These days i try to humble myself and ask for help.
It seems similar to procrastination, somehow.
Feels like to me setting a timer and doing 30 min of a task has the same kind of surrender in it that asking for help does.
Maybe this is related to having hi expectations for ourselves and maybe that leads to not wanting to ask for help and wanting to be able to get things done at an unrealistically high rate?
dunno. but it's fun to speculate.
Glad you bit the bullet and got your project going again.
thanks clem
You got it - I should be perfect ;-)
“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” - Stephen Covey
8:55 am for Lark, 2:37pm
Good morning everyone. I hope you all do well today. I'm coming out of a funk of sorts. Seems like I've been in slow motion for a week. Some errands need to be run today, but I'd like to get something accomplished for work also. To keep myself off the computer, I'm making a hard copy of today's goals on a notepad. Today:
morning routinespiritual timego to bankpay hardware store bill donate bag of clothes clean and spray trim pieces for inside housefocus on work project Acheck in later in afternoonWDV CI 13:50
Today is a work-day, so no study.
I'd like to:
Call WThose last 2 are neither urgent nor very important, but... ah what the heck, calling W should take only 2 minutes, so according to GTD principles I should do it now! ... All right, done. Could have done that yesterday.
I also want to go out for some fresh air sometime today.
good work wdv
way to go, wdv. You've taken a step in recovery today. I'm proud of you. I'm inspired to face my own challenge...which is to document this little piece of data that requires just 10 clicks or so and a 30 sec of typing, but i dread it.
Thanks!
Thanks clement!
Often we make small tasks huge in our heads. Think through the actual steps required to do the task and see yourself doing it. Then take those steps exactly as visualized...
Sometimes I avoid the visualization, but that's just plain old procrastination. I fear the commitment to do the task. But that means I don't trust myself, which isn't necessary.
So, the motivation doesn't come from visualization, though it can help to reduce the perceived size of the task. (Who was it that said, "Don't measure the height of a mountain until you are at the top. Then you will see how small it was."?).
measure the height of a mountain
> "Don't measure the height of a mountain until you are at the top. Then you will see how small it was."
oooh. i like that.
kromer 7:40 CI
A little slow getting started this morning, but I'm ready now.
Tasks for the morning:
*Declare that I'm accepting a scholarship (What a stupid thing to put off! I've waited until the last possible second to do this...)
*Start 2 preliminary calculations for my thesis
*Do Spanish HW
*Make lunch, tidy room, gather safety training stuff + bio class stuff
*Leave for class at 9, take the long way so I get some exercise
*Go to Spanish and Biochem classes
kromer 12:40 CI
Did all of the above *except* taking the long way to class.
It's OK, I'll try to either take the long way home or go for a walk with a friend this evening.
I have until 3 for focused work on my two big projects, then I have lab meeting 3-4, then I'll check in again with a plan for the evening.
For senior thesis:
*Look at results from 2 prelim. calculations*Talk to PF about how to deal with analyzing hundreds of genes
*I'm currently using a max and I think it might make more sense to use the median, so I'll process the data to let me do that
*Do expression filtering on interactome
*Do some prelim. work for other data sets--read over info about 3 more, also check whether Rb is in my set of coregulatorsFor bio project:
*Meet with PK if he's available
*Revise intro
*Revise results section
*Scan in image
*Talk to SXI'll start with a bit senior thesis stuff, looking at results from prelim. calcs and doing a little investigation of other data sets.
I'll work in the chatbox/update here as necessary to keep me motivated, but I'll definitely be back at 4.
kromer 4 CI
OK, as per usual I've made progress but not nearly as much as I think I should have.
I did the crossed-off tasks listed above, and gathered some info I need to revise my bio project. I also went to lab mtg.
I need to leave lab by 5:10 so I can get home in time to cook dinner (and I need to stop by the store on the way home).
Before then, I absolutely must *scan in image* *email TN* *make sure I have the documents I need to finished my revisions*. So I'll take care of those things next. Then I'll work on:
*Processing data to get the median
*Emailing PF about how to deal with 100s of genes
I'm sure that's enough to keep me busy until 5:10.
My goals for the evening are to finish all of the things on my 12:40 list, plus revise materials and methods section for my bio project and look at what proteins interact with CREBBP.