Waiting till the last minute.

[s.ketch]

Due to the fact that I dont know if anyone that this affects is a member of these forums, im not gonna give out too much detail.

Im one of those people who wait till the last minute. I know this is a very bad trait for a person who aspires to be working with deadlines. I just find it very hard to get started right off the bat. I had a "portfolio" to do for admission to "college." Of course i waited till i only had about 3 weeks untill it was due. I finished it on time though, and the "administrators" liked my "stuff" alot. Well one of the "administrators" gave me some "busy work" to do by my next "visit." Once again I only started it last week and im going down "there" very "soon."

My question would be if some of you out there were like this, how did you break that bad habbit of waiting so long? How can I get myself motivated to work? I enjoy doing the "busy work" I just cant get started. Any advice, stories, tips, threats, words would be greatly appriciated. Thanks.

[0kelvin]

Is this some kind of sexual euphemism?



0kelvin

[cotron]

stop being "lazy"

[Idiot Apathy]

Umm, willpower mate. You know the problem now sit down and fix it, get to work instead of posting.

Or you could hit yourself with a hammer everytime you procrastinate, that would fix ya!

[WildSpruceMoose]

In grade 7 we had a science project that I procrastinated on. I missed the premiere of futurama because of it and was up until 1am that night. Haven't majorly procrastinated since, always liked going to bed at my normal time with the satisfaction that my work for the day was done. Sounds like you have plenty of time though, i don't know what the big deal is.

[Dead Road 7]

I think your problem is that your life is made up mostly of "these".

[Undefeated]

I used to be hooked on airquotes, man. Trust me..don't let it take over your life. I used to be a lawyer.

[Ned]

stop quoting everything you write and just "do" "it", brother.

[Tetsuo]

get an apartment and live on your own. Dont ask for money from anyone but yourself. You will learn real quick how much motivation you need to get something done. Its either that or starve...

[VirusArtist]

had that habit too.. broke it very fastly through making my work room look more inspiring..

an armour here, a few weapons there, computerprints of my fav CA art on the wall (the fall is FULL of them) a board with my best works on the other wall (makes you realise you never are quite "there" yet) accompanied by a "to do"-list and up to date prints of my bank account (realising you will end up broke at the end of the the month if you dont work tends to be the best motivation).

Another good way to force yourself to work is to unplug your tv and dvd player, hide all your entertainment (dvds, videos, games etc) in a big box and delete anything that resembles entertainment from your computer (except music of course). In the end you should just end up in an enviroment that literally forces you to work.

cheers,
Etienne

[Elwell]

...the "administrators" liked my "stuff" alot. Well one of the "administrators" gave me some "busy work" to do by my next "visit."... and im going down "there" very "soon."
"Dear Penthouse Forum,
I never believed the letters in your magazine, until one day..."

[MegaData]

In contests, I normally wait 'til the last minute because it gives me more time to work on the project, and no one can steal my ideas... in theory.

As far as working on the projects, it is obvious we have more time for other things at first. The creative process also takes time for you to be developing the idea, in your head, and how it will be presented. I spend a lot of time, while working, just studying what I've done and asking myself how I can change it, to make it better. I need to start doing more predrawings and concepts... Anyway, maybe you are just "waiting for the right moment." Ideas normally flow better for me in the end than they do in the begining. Good art takes time. :teeth:

If you really are waiting 'til the last minute, without even thinking about the project, then you may want to look into "time management." Designate an alotted time during your daily activities to work on it, everyday. Heh, I need to do this with my guitar. So, I'm going to have to stop myself from giving further advice now. :P

[Necronomicouch]

i put post it notes on the things that would distract me from doing the thing i was supposed to. Note on the TV "You should be working", note on the computer "you should be working" etc. Eventually my own guilt made me get to a point where I would bust it out early so I could coast until the deadline.

[dogfood]

Oh, man, I was giggling at the number of quotes in that post until I read Elwell's comment and then kippers shot out my nose!

[Red_Rook]

darkwolfb87 posted this in the advice thread and its so true:

Parkinson's law: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

Now stop messing around and go do you work, now.

[Ilaekae]

I had that problem for about a week. Then I got married...

[Slash]

"wise" "words" "ilaekae". The moral of the story is "dont" get "married."

And "dont" "overuse" quotation "marks"

[s.ketch]

XD you guys are great.

0Kelvin: hahahah
Idiot Apathy: Hammers fix everything.
WildSpruceMoose: Nope, I got a very short amount of time.(2 days)
Tetsuo: I aint far from having to do that.
VirusArtist: This sounds like a good soloution, I used to have some old Feng sketches up, but theyre gone now. Thanks.
Elwell: hahahaaha
Necronomicouch: Im definatly gonna do this. Thanks.

Thanks you guys, i really appriciate your replys, they help out alot. More replies welcome.

[lavhoes]

Procrastination is a pretty serious problem, sometimes far beyond simply being too lazy to get things done. Often, it can be evidence of a deeper problem, such as low self esteem, lack of a feeling of control, anxiety, or a number of other issues. Now, sometimes it's just the simple fact that people prefer to do things that benefit them clearly and quickly, but for the most part chronic procrastination stems from something bigger, and should be treated at its root.

Simply applying more willpower doesn't always work, because for some people they have a complex system of mental processes to sabotage any serious work they try to do. For me, I used to put up an infinite amount of obstacles that needed to be completed before I could actually get work done. I would expand my workload as to make it overwhelming, and thus felt justified in putting it off. I looked at what needed to be done as one huge task with a number of other tasks that needed to be completed beforehand, so I took comfort in avoiding such a colossal and irrational burden. Simply saying, "damnit just do the work" left me barreling through a huge list of tasks until I was burnt out without actually having touched my work at all. To actually get better, I had to get to the root of my problem in this instance.

They key to beating any procrastination habit is to figure out what is compelling you to put off your tasks, and then critically analyze your thoughts as you feel this compulsion. Do you needlessly inflate the task at hand to monumental proportions, thus rendering you incapable of completing it? Do you feel a harsh obligation to do things, only to rebel against what needs to be done? Do you feel your skills are inadequate to complete your tasks, so you put off what you have to do with empty promises that you'll improve in the meantime?

There's a lot of different ways to procrastinate, so there isn't one catchall solution. Beyond getting to the core of your reasons for procrastinating, there is something you can do to chip away at the current problem:

Recognize that, for the most part, no task needs completing in one huge chunk of time. You can break things down into smaller blocks of time, spread out over the length of your deadline. If you have a paper due in a week, promise yourself to spend only five minutes on the first day writing an outline, maybe later on in the day spending fifteen minutes sketching out a rough draft at most. On the second day, spend a minute compiling a list of sources you might need, or if you're not sure of where to get information, a list of the most likely places to have the sources you need. Then spend ten minutes later on gathering those sources. On the third day, shuffle through your sources and take a few minutes to jot down some notes, then later take a bit and apply those notes to your rough draft. And so on through the week, until the paper is done and proofread.

I get papers written everyday in the five minutes between sitting down at my computer and doing something fun. I have a laptop, so every time I sit down with it I promised myself to spend no more than five minutes working on art history work before I do anything else. Those five minutes add up to about 45 minutes a day, which over the span of a five-day week turns into almost four hours of work, entirely in five-minute chunks of time I would've thrown away previously.

Next time you sit down at your computer, before you launch your internet browser or favorite game, see if you can spend just five minutes working on something you've been putting off. You don't need to commit more than that, just five minutes and then you can feel justified doing whatever the hell you'd like. If you take only five minutes before you do anything to just get a little bit of work done, you'd be surprised how quickly you catch up and stay ahead. That time adds up, it's just often too slow to notice it.

When we think of getting things done, we want to be efficient, so we block our time into huge chunks in order to get things done in one pass. This would seem like the most logical way of going about it, but often those huge chunks of time are eaten away by other things in life. That fifteen-minute drive could turn into thirty due to traffic, that half-hour meal could stretch to over an hour if the food's slow. Every day, new and unexpected opportunities spring up that demand our attention, which has the unfortunate side-effect of eating away those chunks of time we were going to use to complete other tasks. So in reality, the best way to get things done is to break them up into small, simple tasks that can be done quickly and over the course of however long we have to do what needs to be done. Once you start breaking things down and spending a lot of little chunks of time doing things, you'll find yourself having a lot more free time than you would have guessed.

Anyway, that's just for starters; you can find a lot more information over at the Wikipedia article on procrastination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination), or from any number of cheap books on the subject at the book store.

Like I said, chronic procrastination is a very serious and complex problem, worth taking the time to research and work through. If you feel you're having difficulty with it, please try to learn about it as much as you can and get to the root of the problem so that you can fully work out why you're putting things off. You'll find yourself quite capable of fighting off this nasty habit once you do a little research.

[Red_Rook]

nice post lavhoes, very informative :)

[MuffinMan]

Procrastination is a pretty serious problem, sometimes far beyond simply being too lazy to get things done. Often, it can be evidence of a deeper problem, such as low self esteem, lack of a feeling of control, anxiety, or a number of other issues. Now, sometimes it's just the simple fact that people prefer to do things that benefit them clearly and quickly, but for the most part chronic procrastination stems from something bigger, and should be treated at its root.

Simply applying more willpower doesn't always work, because for some people they have a complex system of mental processes to sabotage any serious work they try to do. For me, I used to put up an infinite amount of obstacles that needed to be completed before I could actually get work done. I would expand my workload as to make it overwhelming, and thus felt justified in putting it off. I looked at what needed to be done as one huge task with a number of other tasks that needed to be completed beforehand, so I took comfort in avoiding such a colossal and irrational burden. Simply saying, "damnit just do the work" left me barreling through a huge list of tasks until I was burnt out without actually having touched my work at all. To actually get better, I had to get to the root of my problem in this instance.

They key to beating any procrastination habit is to figure out what is compelling you to put off your tasks, and then critically analyze your thoughts as you feel this compulsion. Do you needlessly inflate the task at hand to monumental proportions, thus rendering you incapable of completing it? Do you feel a harsh obligation to do things, only to rebel against what needs to be done? Do you feel your skills are inadequate to complete your tasks, so you put off what you have to do with empty promises that you'll improve in the meantime?

There's a lot of different ways to procrastinate, so there isn't one catchall solution. Beyond getting to the core of your reasons for procrastinating, there is something you can do to chip away at the current problem:

Recognize that, for the most part, no task needs completing in one huge chunk of time. You can break things down into smaller blocks of time, spread out over the length of your deadline. If you have a paper due in a week, promise yourself to spend only five minutes on the first day writing an outline, maybe later on in the day spending fifteen minutes sketching out a rough draft at most. On the second day, spend a minute compiling a list of sources you might need, or if you're not sure of where to get information, a list of the most likely places to have the sources you need. Then spend ten minutes later on gathering those sources. On the third day, shuffle through your sources and take a few minutes to jot down some notes, then later take a bit and apply those notes to your rough draft. And so on through the week, until the paper is done and proofread.

I get papers written everyday in the five minutes between sitting down at my computer and doing something fun. I have a laptop, so every time I sit down with it I promised myself to spend no more than five minutes working on art history work before I do anything else. Those five minutes add up to about 45 minutes a day, which over the span of a five-day week turns into almost four hours of work, entirely in five-minute chunks of time I would've thrown away previously.

Next time you sit down at your computer, before you launch your internet browser or favorite game, see if you can spend just five minutes working on something you've been putting off. You don't need to commit more than that, just five minutes and then you can feel justified doing whatever the hell you'd like. If you take only five minutes before you do anything to just get a little bit of work done, you'd be surprised how quickly you catch up and stay ahead. That time adds up, it's just often too slow to notice it.

When we think of getting things done, we want to be efficient, so we block our time into huge chunks in order to get things done in one pass. This would seem like the most logical way of going about it, but often those huge chunks of time are eaten away by other things in life. That fifteen-minute drive could turn into thirty due to traffic, that half-hour meal could stretch to over an hour if the food's slow. Every day, new and unexpected opportunities spring up that demand our attention, which has the unfortunate side-effect of eating away those chunks of time we were going to use to complete other tasks. So in reality, the best way to get things done is to break them up into small, simple tasks that can be done quickly and over the course of however long we have to do what needs to be done. Once you start breaking things down and spending a lot of little chunks of time doing things, you'll find yourself having a lot more free time than you would have guessed.

Anyway, that's just for starters; you can find a lot more information over at the Wikipedia article on procrastination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination), or from any number of cheap books on the subject at the book store.

Like I said, chronic procrastination is a very serious and complex problem, worth taking the time to research and work through. If you feel you're having difficulty with it, please try to learn about it as much as you can and get to the root of the problem so that you can fully work out why you're putting things off. You'll find yourself quite capable of fighting off this nasty habit once you do a little research.

Man, I think you have shown me the "light", for a long time I procrastinated ALOT. For example I wouldn't do homework til later at midnight everyday. I geuss I may need to focus more and ignore whatever that distracts me and put off less important things. procrastination has really affected how I did school and such. Not much at all at work, but school.

[Slash]

Lavhoes, thank you for that read. I recognized many of the behavior patterns you mentioned in myself, even tho i dont like admitting it to myself. A good wakeup call, i'll be putting your advice to good use. (or try atleast. :D)

[0kelvin]

Procrastination is a pretty serious problem, sometimes far beyond simply being too lazy to get things done. Often, it can be evidence of a deeper problem, such as low self esteem, lack of a feeling of control, anxiety, or a number of other issues. Now, sometimes it's just the simple fact that people prefer to do things that benefit them clearly and quickly, but for the most part chronic procrastination stems from something bigger, and should be treated at its root.

Simply applying more willpower doesn't always work, because for some people they have a complex system of mental processes to sabotage any serious work they try to do. For me, I used to put up an infinite amount of obstacles that needed to be completed before I could actually get work done. I would expand my workload as to make it overwhelming, and thus felt justified in putting it off. I looked at what needed to be done as one huge task with a number of other tasks that needed to be completed beforehand, so I took comfort in avoiding such a colossal and irrational burden. Simply saying, "damnit just do the work" left me barreling through a huge list of tasks until I was burnt out without actually having touched my work at all. To actually get better, I had to get to the root of my problem in this instance.

They key to beating any procrastination habit is to figure out what is compelling you to put off your tasks, and then critically analyze your thoughts as you feel this compulsion. Do you needlessly inflate the task at hand to monumental proportions, thus rendering you incapable of completing it? Do you feel a harsh obligation to do things, only to rebel against what needs to be done? Do you feel your skills are inadequate to complete your tasks, so you put off what you have to do with empty promises that you'll improve in the meantime?

There's a lot of different ways to procrastinate, so there isn't one catchall solution. Beyond getting to the core of your reasons for procrastinating, there is something you can do to chip away at the current problem:

Recognize that, for the most part, no task needs completing in one huge chunk of time. You can break things down into smaller blocks of time, spread out over the length of your deadline. If you have a paper due in a week, promise yourself to spend only five minutes on the first day writing an outline, maybe later on in the day spending fifteen minutes sketching out a rough draft at most. On the second day, spend a minute compiling a list of sources you might need, or if you're not sure of where to get information, a list of the most likely places to have the sources you need. Then spend ten minutes later on gathering those sources. On the third day, shuffle through your sources and take a few minutes to jot down some notes, then later take a bit and apply those notes to your rough draft. And so on through the week, until the paper is done and proofread.

I get papers written everyday in the five minutes between sitting down at my computer and doing something fun. I have a laptop, so every time I sit down with it I promised myself to spend no more than five minutes working on art history work before I do anything else. Those five minutes add up to about 45 minutes a day, which over the span of a five-day week turns into almost four hours of work, entirely in five-minute chunks of time I would've thrown away previously.

Next time you sit down at your computer, before you launch your internet browser or favorite game, see if you can spend just five minutes working on something you've been putting off. You don't need to commit more than that, just five minutes and then you can feel justified doing whatever the hell you'd like. If you take only five minutes before you do anything to just get a little bit of work done, you'd be surprised how quickly you catch up and stay ahead. That time adds up, it's just often too slow to notice it.

When we think of getting things done, we want to be efficient, so we block our time into huge chunks in order to get things done in one pass. This would seem like the most logical way of going about it, but often those huge chunks of time are eaten away by other things in life. That fifteen-minute drive could turn into thirty due to traffic, that half-hour meal could stretch to over an hour if the food's slow. Every day, new and unexpected opportunities spring up that demand our attention, which has the unfortunate side-effect of eating away those chunks of time we were going to use to complete other tasks. So in reality, the best way to get things done is to break them up into small, simple tasks that can be done quickly and over the course of however long we have to do what needs to be done. Once you start breaking things down and spending a lot of little chunks of time doing things, you'll find yourself having a lot more free time than you would have guessed.

Anyway, that's just for starters; you can find a lot more information over at the Wikipedia article on procrastination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrastination), or from any number of cheap books on the subject at the book store.

Like I said, chronic procrastination is a very serious and complex problem, worth taking the time to research and work through. If you feel you're having difficulty with it, please try to learn about it as much as you can and get to the root of the problem so that you can fully work out why you're putting things off. You'll find yourself quite capable of fighting off this nasty habit once you do a little research.

Long post. I'll read it later...


(All kidding aside, great advice!)



0kelvin

[s.ketch]

Wow. Thanks lavhoes I found that very informative, and now I realize that procrastination is more than wanting not to do somthing. Damn good post sir.

[Qitsune]

Not only planning your work in small easily trackable chunk good for your homework, it's also the way lots of businesses work. An art director most probably won't ask you for a final model right away, but for thumbnails, then a refined sketch, orthos, a model, textures, riggins etc.

[NikitaDarkstar]

Thanks for the great post lavhoes, I'll honestly try to do that.. (TRY lets see if it works ;))

I also think that the tendecny to think that you need to work on something for hours non-stop actually comes from school, atleast among younger pepole (students), I mean if you look at your sheduele I bet that most of your classes will be around 2 hours long, sometimes longer sometimes shorter (my killer in college was a 4 hours lesson without any breaks monday afternoon....), I think the school sheduele actually teaches you to think that you need more time than you actually do to get things done.....

I don't know it's just a theory of mine.. anyway again thanks for the good post ;)