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.
Addiction Control
Since starting to utilized this site a couple of weeks ago a lot of things have been going through my head. First off, coming to terms w/ the fact that procrastination is an addiction has been paramount to my understanding how to get "clean". Secondly, I realize how fricken hard it's going to be for me to get clean because really, I'm like an recoving alcoholic who goes to the bar while trying to stay clean.
Everyday, I come to office where my computer sits and it's all wired up to surf the net (my greatest procrastination tool). I realized that I'm putting myself in a position to fail just by coming to work everyday. Why would a recovering addict still go to the bar?
Ultimately, I'm going to have to turn my "bar" into something else, without quiting my job (not realistic right now). Is this really possible? I guess I'm the one I have to convince on this one.
Just a thought.
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dizzle's realization
from my own experience and what others have shared here, this is a big step you took.
The "going to the bar" analogy is really helpful to me to explain how hard it is for us. Temptation is all around us.
I guess thinking about it that's why my growing ability to admit failure to myself and others is so important to me.
And this "going to the bar" encourages me because it reminds me how hard the thing that i am (we are) trying do here really is.
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the touch of the master's hand: http://procrastinators-anonymous.org/node/1898#comment-27748
"fall down seven times, get up eight" - japanese proverb
Think of this...
...not so much like an addiction to alcohol or drugs (which for most people require a complete abstinence) but rather the compulsive use of an activity like sex or shopping, which ideally will remain a part of the person's life even after recovery. After all, everyone sooner or later needs to shop, and most people in committed romantic/marital relationships will appropriately desire lovemaking with their partner from time to time.
Similarly, you may need your computer and/or the Internet for good things, ie Work.
So, just a thought...
[**as an aside, I don't want to get into a debate here on the question of whether "sex addiction" or even "shopping addiction" even exist. I'm well aware that it's problematic to be simplistic about these concepts.]
The Hero's Code:
Show up. Pay Attention. Speak the Truth. Let Go of the Outcome.
Can you rearrange your
Can you rearrange your space? And rearrange your desktop too. Make everything different and fresh, and do not have the computer as a focal point. Of course that's where the majority of work is done, but it doesn't have to be the first thing you see when you walk into your space....
We all have to learn to think a different way, why not see and look a different way too?
Nothing is worth more than this day - Goethe
I used the mozilla firefox
I used the mozilla firefox add on called leechblock. it lets you limit surfing on particular sites in a very controlled way (eg none at all or 10 min per hour or i hour per day, or none 9-5---many many choices so no cold turkey). and it keeps a log of your time on certain sites if you wish.
Leechblock
Yes, leechblock is fantastic. It doesn't answer all problems because you have to specify the addresses of the sites you want to block, or words that are contained within addresses. And of course, there's always going to be something you can find online that you can waste your time on. But you can block out the worst offenders (like for me any address that contains the word 'sudoku'!) I've also had to delete Internet Explorer from my computer (so I can't access leechblocked sites through that), and asked leechblock to block any site that contains the word 'microsoft' during work hours (so I can't download IE again). Sounds drastic, but it really helped. I'm still finding stuff to waste my time on (perhaps I should limit my access to PA too!), but it's a step in the right direction.
I actually find that going into the office helps. Because there there are other peopple around that could see me if I started procrastinating (at least if I did so by surfing the net etc.) Is it not like that at your workplace? Can you set something up so that what you do from day to day is more 'visible'? How about turning your computer round so that the screen faces the inside of the room rather than the wall?