be less distracted

But I’ve been doing okay with this. It really helps to ask David. He tells me the same thing (pretty much) that he told me last time, but I tend to forget when I’m annoyed about things I don’t want to do. I don’t think I’m as easily distracted as I used to be anyways. It will be nice when I graduate, as I seem to have picked the worst classes for my last semester. They’re not particularly difficult, just bad. At least I have fewer classes than other semesters. It’s additionally harder to do the work because I know that this won’t really make a difference even a month from now. Hrmm…

I really do think I’m less distractable than I used to be, but this class is pushing me. It’s not hard, it’s just annoying. I have done a lot of stuff I’m pleased with instead of studying, but these were not especially time critical. My midterm is tomorrow. I go back to studying periodically, but I haven’t been able to concentrate on it…

I recently got into Grey’s Anatomy, and I really like some of the things they say in it. I really like this quotation, which doesn’t exactly fit this goal, but it’s close enough. :-)

Dr. Meredith Grey: A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say. I don’t know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I’d have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you’re wrong? What if you’re making a mistake you can’t undo? The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can’t pretend we hadn’t been told. We’ve all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day. Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today’s possibility under tomorrow’s rug until we can’t anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant. That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beats the hell out of never trying.

I managed to study a lot better for this final than the other one, and I think it paid off. Hopefully over break I can get a bunch done on Daily Joys. I am so glad the semester’s over!

Still got a ways to go for where I want to be in how distractable I am, but I’m getting there. I studied for a few hours yesterday with only small breaks here and there, and a couple hours so far today. And I’ve still got plenty of hours left, and some time tomorrow before my last final.

David told me this idea of keeping a “Distraction List” while you’re working. You just keep a list of all the things you want to do/be distracted by, but not do any of them until you give yourself a real break. Of course, you never have to do any of them. It’s worked really well for me so far. For some reason, doing this is satisfying enough that I can get it out of my mind.

(I’m on an actual break now, in case you were curious. :-) )

I really sat down and put a lot of time and thought into my project. I got distracted here and there, but overall I think it was good.

Somewhat distracted from studying right now. I have been intermittently studying for my exam tomorrow, and I don’t feel too bad about that. Better than I used to be, so that’s good. I don’t feel especially worried about this mid-term, but I’ll see if that’s warranted when I get it back graded.

I’ve been doing ok at not being distracted this past week, although Monday was pretty bad when I was working on an assignment I really didn’t like. I did manage to finish it, but it took a lot longer than it should have.

Other than that, I think I’m doing pretty well overall. Could be better still, but certainly better than I used to be.