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.
Recycler CI 6pm EST
Hi High-flyin' Pro Buddies & Teensy Angels! :)
I didn't sleep well last night, so I'm surprised that today has gone as well as it has ;) Will hopefully sleep like a log tonight ;)
Today: rode train to work, stretched, checked work e-mail before being in training all day, miraculously accomplished project in unreasonably short period of time for boss who did not say "thank you" ((sigh)). Had Training. For a question, knew a key procedure that the trainer did not know and taught the class . Ate lunch with other class members. Finished afternoon training, then checked work e-mail at end of day. Tried another project, but found out it was already done; which I was happy about it being done. Rode train home. Drank Gatorade & getting ready to go out ;)
Tonight: drop prescription at pharmacy, support group meeting, pick up prescription, meet with sponsor for a soft drink.
Later tonight: DO NOT READ MSNBC Dateline True Crime Reports immediately before bedtime!!!!
Have a great night, everyone! :)
Recycler
Thank you, gals & guys, for being here! :)
Rick's MON Check In
07/07/08 MONDAY LIST - FOR TODAY!
XXXX - Clear Desk / Daily Basket
XXXX - Banking / Bills (All Urgent)
XXXX - Boys Jobs
XXXX - Finish ADD Class
XXXX - AR "Pink" Billing
XXXX - Start Emp Billing / Mo Report
XXXX - Walk or Work in Garden
07/05/08 SAT/SUN: YESTERDAY REPORT
XXXX - Clear My Desk [STARTED]
XXXX - Create and Clean out my Daily Basket
XXXX - Plant my Father's Day plants (blush)
DONE - Take a Long Walk with the weiner dog
XXXX - Put the boys to work, and pay them. [STARTED]
DONE - Try out the Weekly Chat Group [FUN! BIG STEP]
DONE - Check In [LATE BUT DONE]
Yesteday wasn't as good, but a good start. I did do the group which was a big step. I did finish some other little dreaded tasks, but didn't maintain my focus. Still I'm healthy and "sober" and it feels good.
welcome rick
so you've taken TWO steps with the mtg yesterday and checking in here today. Nice follow thru. Good to have you on the forum and thanks for sharing your experience, strength & hope in the meeting yesterday.
Rita checking in
After a wonderful weekend, off to a good start this morning so far. Already prayed, caught a 12-Step meeting, checked some family stuff, talked to a sponsee, exercised, considered my to-do list and did some pet care. Today's MITs:
Rita 1:30 ci
Thanks c&j for the encouraging words...you too!
Rita 5:50 pm hair-pulling
aaaagh! shoot. rats. grrr...very little has gone as planned today. I'm angry and frustrated by errors on the DIY project, some mine and some others' - and so anxious about meeting a disordered project mgr's excessive demands that I have had chest pain all afternoon. Here's how it's gone:
Next up: yet another unexpected but needed read-through of DIY.
good goin rita
nice to see you're having a good day.
ditto good going rita!
You get a lot done most of the time Rita!
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
Lark @ 9:44am, 12:47pm
Hi everyone. I'm watching a Flash Gordon DVD from the Dollar Store. It was filmed in West Berlin in 1953, and it's pretty funny. Well, I'm taking a couple of days off this week, and that'll be great. Only thing, I need to squeeze alot of stuff into today. Ugh.
To do:
(X)morning routine
(X)spiritual time
clean spare bedroom.
call friend about cutting boards
general house cleaning
(X)make sure project A is done
(X)clean out garage a bit
(X)focus on next work project
(X)tidy workshop 15 minutes
(X)get trash ready for trash day (tomorrow)
do load of laundry
(X)check in this afternoon
Journey 9:20
Ugh . . . Monday. . . after a long weekend. I got on the scales at the gym this morning and the news was not good. Although the bad news was expected since I ate like a pig all weekend
Anyway, I have slogged through my 20 minutes of getting started. Now I can have coffee. I have made a rough, unprioritized todo list, and scanned my email. After break, set MITs and read/process email. By then I should be awake and hopefully in a better mood!
Later, gators.
Jo
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
Journey 1 pm
I am slow as a snail today! And my mood has not improved - it's still a blah Monday. But finally, at lunchtime, my MITs are set for the day lol! I also plowed though a couple hundred emails - most of which were unimportant and could be deleted. Took care of a couple of smaller tasks that showed up in email. Now, I'm going to do my most important task for today, which will only take about 15 minutes. then, lunch break!
Jo
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
good job J
I think the most important part of beating procrastination is pushing through the blah, slow days--and it seems like you're doing that! Good job, keep going :)
Thanks Kromer
Yes, it is still a blah, slow day - but I'm trudging through it with the help of my routines - the 20 minute start up, setting MITs, then executing my MITs starting with the most important, then the second most important, etc. I'm not setting the world on fire today by any means, but's it's a big improvement over my pre-PA self. Back in the day, I would have wasted the entire day and felt useless and depressed by 5 pm, then gone home and wasted the evening too! It's nice to be approaching the end of the day and knowing that I did the best I could for a down-in-dumps Monday, and got through my top three MITs in spite of it all . . . Thanks PA buddies and pals!
Jo
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
cl ci
non-work task bookend. 9:17am.
cl stalled
so, my work MIT, while i started on it with good speed, it has stalled to a stop, because i can't wrap my brain around it. i tried chat and it didnt work yet. I tried writing it out, and it didnt work yet.
Now i'm going to try to have my quiet time w/ god. c if that wrks.
One thing that's different today--i keep trying.
1hr and counting
got significantly off track. A tangent. related, but not MIT. Back to quiet time.
ci task complete
1st part of my quiet time is done. First completed task in last 4 hrs. It's a start. Now for 2nd part.
ok now 2nd complete too. That was prayer. And as usual, perspective re-aligning. I feel like god does not care about my task disposition, but rather the attitude of my heart. Now, of course, they're related. Stressing out about getting lost in my task is not the 'tude god desires, it appears. Trust in him, however, is.
In an irony paralleling Steps 1-3, by "not caring" about whether i accomplish this task nor how fast, i am freed up to care about it. In a new, healthy, balanced way.
Have you ever noticed that only steps 1 & 12 specifically mention alcoholism (or procrastination :) ). Interesting, isn't it!
open-ended bookend lol
yeah... um...
this happens to me. I did the task. It had another one hidden inside it that i hadn't realized. I did that too. Then another one showed up at the door. Then i started working on my work MIT.
So, what i'm saying is that even tho i only bookend the start of a task sometimes, that appears to be all i need to get myself in a productive frame of mind.
how 'bout you?
re: open ended bookend
Sometimes, but more often, if I post one end of a bookend and never come back . . . I'm probably playing World of Warcraft or something hehe
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
Joruney - World of Warcraft
Journey! I'm not on WoW any more! (Or Warcrack, as my non-gaming friends call it :p). I've discovered that the trick to quiting WoW is ...... going broke :rolleyes: but it works! I've been "clean" since 6th April 2008 (which is when my account expired) :grin: Sadly though, the only reason I'm still not using is because I'm still broke and not because of my strength of will :rolleyes: But it should count for something that I haven't blown what I do have on it! And believe me, I *was* tempted several times to do so. Sad *shakes head*
But aside from WoW, I often leave open-ended bookends either because I've been too busy to post anything, or because I've spent the remaining part of the day watching TV/gaming/out with friends and am too discouraged to post back my non-progress :p
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Warcrack lol
I have found that WoW is not as much fun when you limit playing time to a reasonable amount. I end up playing solo all the time, because I don't have 2 hours for Scarlet Monastery or whatever with a group. It gets a little boring when you play alone :0.
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
re: Warcrack
Yeah I know =/ I tried explaining that to my parents but for some reason they didn't seem to care. Also, they seemed to think asking me to drop my sister off somewhere while I'm in the middle of a dungeon with a group to be okay :rolleyes: I miss WoW :( When my account is back up I'll create a character on your server :-) That should be fun :grin:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
where's the other end of this bookend clem? lol . . .
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
kromer 7 CI
I'm getting rather panicked about my meeting with my advisor in 6 hours! I don't quite feel like I've gotten 4 days worth of work done since the last one...
Deep breath, can't go back in time and get more done, just need to get as much done as I can.
I want to leave for work at 8:30. Before then, I want to work out clustering bug...there's some problem, maybe having to do with negative similarities?
UPDATE 8--I think bug is fixed. I have some initial results to show my prof., and am running more calculations to get better data (to use this week). Now I'm getting out lect. notes.
I also want to do some background reading...I'll skim through lect. notes to get some algorithmic ideas, and put off careful reading of lect notes/network flow stuff until later.
When I get to work, I'll check in with a plan for finishing mtg prep.
good luck kromer
keep doing what you've been doing. It might not go great, but i'm sure it will be good enuf. progress not perfection. I'm sure your adviser has had other people come to him not having completed as much as they expected.
kromer 9:10 CI
I got to work on time, but didn't get through lect note review. I'm going to give myself 30 min. to get through that. Then I'm going to check on calcs. for getting better clustering data. Then I'll check in again with a plan for mtg prep. (My prep is going to focus on algorithmic ideas, so that I'll have a good basis for next week's work)
kromer 9:55
Got through lect note review + a little extra background reading, checked on calcs (first part is done, I can start the 2nd)
Now, plan for mtg prep:
Ideally, I'd like to have good TF cluster data, coregulators assigned to be activators or repressors, concreate algorithmic proposals, and ideas for using STRING database to expand interactome. I plan to work until 12:30 on getting these things together, and then spend the last 30 min before the mtg gathering my thoughts.
Of these tasks, I think the most important are concrete algorithmic proposals and good TF cluster data. I'd also like to get at least a little bit done on STRING, if possible.
So, here's a step-by-step plan:
1)Do 2nd part of TF cluster calc (making graph) DONE
2)Start computation for 3rd part (computing distance matrix) DONE
3)Spend 30 min thinking/taking notes about how I'd choose single best coregulator. DONE
4)Spend 1 hr thinking/taking notes about possible algorithms for predicting multiple coregulators. Try to distill into 3 concrete proposals DONE
5)Spend 30 min investigating STRING database--check degree v. BIOGRID, look at known clusters
6)Take notes/gather my thoughts for the mtg
kromer 1:40 CI
Yay! My meeting actually went really well...my advisor was very happy with what I'd done.
Unfortunately, now that the stress has worn off, my motivation seems to have gone with it.
I'm going to take a 10-min walk, then come back, take notes from the mtg, and set my schedule for the week. Then I'll check back in.
kromer 3:00 CI
After lots of thinking (and a little dawdling), I've taken notes from mtg, thought about where it makes sense to go next with my project, and made out a schedule for the week (the schedules probably a bit over-ambitious, but it's a start...and I'll have Sat, Sun, and Monday morning to get through what I can't finish during the work week).
I need to leave work for Harambee at 5:20, and before I leave I need to call TH, get phone #, enter teens' phone #s in my phone, pay credit card bill. That means that realistically I need to stop working around 4:50.
Before then I will accomplish the following (any of these that don't get done now *must* be done tonight):
*Look through OMIM for coregulator knockouts
*Organize lab notebook
*Print PLOS comp bio and Science papers
*Email Alice about randomization runs
*Submit timecards
And I will try to make progress at least one of the following (I need to spend at least 15 min on one of these tasks some time today, but that's all I'm going to force myself to do):
*Finish Network flow reading
*Look through GEO for coregulator knockouts
I'm going to start with OMIN,
kromer 5:10 CI
Wow, looking through OMIM is a bigger task than I thought! I've been concentrating pretty well, but I'm less than halfway through.
I need to stop now and take it home.
I called TH and got phone number.
I don't think I'm going to leave for Harambee before 5:30
In the meantime, I'm going to print papers, submit timecards, pay bill, print off teens' phone numbers, go to ATM and run to convience store. Back when I'm leaving for Harambee.
kromer 11 CI
Did all the above, then went to Harambee (it went well), came home and watched a movie with my friends, had a snack.
I'm going to spend 30 min. looking through OMIM, then shower and go to bed (I didn't get through everything I promised...oh well, it happens, tasks turned out bigger than I expected.
I commit to making a first check-in tomorrow by 7, to get my day started.
Edge's CI - 8:55am
Good morning :-) I didn't get a peaceful night of sleep, but I'll live :-) Want to cross out more of my MITs today :grin:
MITs:
- send H meeting details
- finish Ice profile and send
- call Smer to make sure he received email
- send ice deliverables sched
- update cv
- send cv to ice
- screen cvs
- prepare and send work log (the new version)
- reply to work emails
- find web designers' emails and numbers and send them my contact details
Other:
x vitamins
x hmed 1/2
x fmed 1/2
- blue med
- laundry
- tidy room
- call T about forgotten items
- send ice Nisrn's CV
- call biz teacher
- wash old litter box
- check new syllabus
- 9:00pm MWS
- hmed 2/2
- fmed 2/2
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Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's CI - 9:25am
MITs:
- send H meeting details
- finish Ice profile and send
- call Smer to make sure he received email
- send ice deliverables sched
- update cv
- send cv to ice
- screen cvs
- prepare and send work log (the new version)
- reply to work emails
- find web designers' emails and numbers and send them my contact details
Other:
x vitamins
x hmed 1/2
x fmed 1/2
x blue med
- laundry
- tidy room
- call T about forgotten items
- send ice Nisrn's CV
- call biz teacher
- wash old litter box
- check new syllabus
- 9:00pm MWS
- email Nadine
- email Oday
- hmed 2/2
- fmed 2/2
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's Closing CI
MITs:
- send H meeting details
- finish Ice profile and send
- call Smer to make sure he received email
- send ice deliverables sched
- update cv
- send cv to ice
- screen cvs
- prepare and send work log (the new version)
- reply to work emails
- find web designers' emails and numbers and send them my contact details
Other:
x vitamins
x hmed 1/2
x fmed 1/2
x blue med
x laundry
- tidy room
- call T about forgotten items
- send ice Nisrn's CV
- call biz teacher
- wash old litter box
- check new syllabus
x 9:00pm MWS
- email Nadine
- email Oday
x hmed 2/2
x fmed 2/2
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's Mini Work To-Do
I'm carrying this list over from yesterday.
x finish editing profile
x finish working on CV
- write and finish services section
- finish compiling logos
- finish resizing logos
- work on document design
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
Edge's Mini Work To-Do - 4:47pm
x finish editing profile
x finish working on CV
- write and finish services section
x finish compiling logos
x finish resizing logos
x work on document design
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
In a pickle
I'm having trouble with writing the services section. I'm not entirely certain what my boss wants me to include in that part, though I do have a basic idea. I'd ask her, except that I'm somewhat worried about her reaction when she realizes that I'm not done with the document yet :rolleyes:
But I suppose I deserve to be reprimanded for not finishing this earlier, so I might as well swallow my pride and ask her. But first I'll at least write an intro to each of the services and then ask her which details she wants me to include, that way I won't look so clueless and behind schedule :p
I hate procrastination :(
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
10th step. "Admitting we were wrong....
Dontcha hate admitting we made a mistake, or didn't know something? It goes against our grain, but the sooner we do it, the better it turns out. Good luck.
admitting we made a mistake, or didn't know something
Yep, that's tough - right up there with asking for help!
Jo
"The sooner you get behind, the longer you have to catch up." - Steven Wright
right: 10th step
admitting when we were wrong. GREAT reminder. tx lark
re: 10th step
Lol, very true. Thanks, Lark :grin:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson
owning up
edge, i know how you feel. I've been coming clean at work too. Lately i've been trying to keep a schedule, and update it when i get behind, which is like every other day. But it helps me keep on track to have a realistic, updated schedule, so i still have to do it.
And dont feel too bad about your procrastination. Your story is inspiring to me, even if it's causing you trouble at work.
re: owning up
Thanks Clement :-) I guess the important thing is not to let a few "mishaps" bring me down or stop me from trying to make progress. It's also important to be honest with myself and not to make excuses, so I take the most logical and realistic route, even if it does make me grimace in dismay.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Nothing diminishes anxiety faster than action - Walter Anderson