My name is Caity, and I am a chronic procrastinator.

TheStar.com: When tomorrow is too soon

I agree that depression, anxiety and so on are not the cause of procrastination.  I disagree that procrastinators are not conscientious.  I am both.

Incidentally, is there a help group for procrastinators?  Has no-one got round to setting one up yet?  Would anyone get round to going?

USB Hamster Wheel at Gadgets.co.uk - Ideal gadgets, gifts and novelties

At last, a real incentive to type loads and loads!  The faster you type, the faster the hamster runs in his wheel!  How cute is that?

PHD Comics: Why? Why??

This is how I spend all my days. Then I wonder why I don’t seem to be making any progress….

I’ve been looking at a lot of websites to do with how to beat procrastination, how to use it to help you get on with things, how to organise your day, how to become more productive, and so on and so forth, then there’s the software I downloaded yesterday, and it strikes me that I’m using these very anti-procrastination sites and tools as just another way to procrastinate.

I like the irony there.

RescueTime

The Hubster remembered he’d found this a while ago, but hadn’t mentioned it to me before now, when I’ve started trying to keep myself from procrastinating. This will apparently see what I spend my time on the computer doing. It will actually tell me, in black and white, how much time I actually waste on the evil Desktop Tower Defence. And Facebook. And faffing about with my own website. All these things. I’ll be able to see how much time I waste on these things compared to how much time I actually spend doing real work.

Scary.

No doubt all my statistics in the near future will show that I’m watching my statistics on RescueTime…

I told my supervisor I need deadlines, so he’s given me the choice of two: either next Monday or next Tuesday. This was supposed to help. So far, it’s nearly ten o’clock, I’m not ready, and I’ve played two games of the evil DTD. I have written out a timetable/things to do list for the day, but I’m behind schedule already.

I’ve also been writing 1000 words a day, although whether they mean anything together or not is a different matter. I review them the next day, and rewrite them, generally. Yesterday, I didn’t write anything because I was worried about my poor cat.

Academic Productivity » How to complete your PhD (or any large project): Hard and soft deadlines, and the Martini Method

Maybe this will work. I’ve been meaning to tell my supervisor to give me deadlines for work. There was a short time when I had to produce something weekly, and I got loads done then, but it’s all pretty wishy-washy at the moment.

Also, Parkinson’s Law is very true - I’ve known this for some time, although I never knew it had a name. And Hofstadter’s Law is true as well, even if you do take into account Hofstadter’s Law.

Link sent by The Hubster.

Update: another way to get stuff done is to not have an attention-seeking cat.