stop procrastinating

A few sessions with my therapist has enabled me to realize that I am a hardcore perfectionist. I knew I was perfectionist before I started therapy, but now I realize that I’ve let my desire for everything to be perfect take over my life, and it’s impacted me in so many areas of my life—including my tendency to procrastinate. If I can’t do it perfectly (and since I’m not perfect that’s pretty often) I get frustrated and overwhelmed and I just quit. It’s why I can’t seem to ever get my apartment clean enough and why I can’t seem to write a paper that meets my satisfaction. If it’s not perfect I feel like I’m letting other people and myself down. For so many years I was able to maintain this tendency because I wouldn’t get so overwhelmed that I would just quit. But now I just get stymied and frustrated. And I can’t live my life like that anymore. I think this is an important realization for me. Now that I know the reason behind my procrastination, I think I can finally learn to move forward past this destructive habit.

I’m feeling pretty darn good about myself right now. I’ve finished all of my grading for both my freshman comp and Brit Lit class. I’ve even posted the grades for my freshman comp, more than a week early! I’ve even written my final exam for Brit Lit, and I’m not giving the exam until Tuesday. Now I can dedicate my efforts this weekend to getting some reading done for my comprehensive exams.

Here’s to me for finally getting something done early!

I need to work on something, I do, but I am just drained. I’ve spent all afternoon and part of this evening working on one of the reading lists for my comprehensive exams, and I keep forgetting what a difficult process it is just to put these lists together. (I’d love to illustrate this to you all with the actual reading list in question, but it’s five pages long, so I’ll spare you) I spent an hour this afternoon with the committee member in charge of this list, and I think it’s (finally!) pretty darn close to being finalized. So, I didn’t get any grading or reading done, but that’s okay. Working on this list is enough productiveness, at least for today. I need a break.

will be a productive day, I know it! I finished getting ready so early today that I had time to pay my cable bill and surf the net for a few minutes.

I’ll be off to school in 15 minutes, in plenty of time to make my copies before my first class. Yay! Good start!

Sometimes I really hate grading papers, especially when I’ve got a set as bad as this one—which is why I’ve put off grading them and why I’m on 43 Things right now instead of grading them. Yep, I’m procrastinating right now, but I’ve given myself a 30 minute time limit, which ends in one more minute.

Sigh…back to the grind. At least there’s only eight left to go.

And not rag on myself because I haven’t finished much on my impossibly long school relate to-do list. So I’m going to give myself a big pat on the back for having read Howards End this weekend. That’s one more text I can check off my comps reading list. If I can get a bit of my grading done in the next couple of hours, then I’ll feel like I’ve had a pretty productive day.

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few weeks thinking about Mikester77’s comment that I might be too hard on myself. I am too hard on myself. I feel like I spend most of my time working on something, but I also feel like I’m getting nothing done. And in the end, I think I feel like this because I can’t accomplish everything it is I want or need to accomplish. It’s frustrating yes, but I’ve got to remind myself that I do get some stuff done, and I shouldn’t tear myself up because I’m unable to finish an impossible list of things.

I do still feel like I could be managing my time more wisely (because if I did, that big stack of grading I’ve been avoiding would be completed by now), but I have got to give myself credit for accomplishing some of the things I finish. So I’m going to start right now:
Yay me for reading Jane Eyre this week. That’s one more book I can check off the 19th century comps reading list. And I really got a lot out of this reading—I noticed loads of stuff that I had never really thought of in previous readings.

to do something productive. So, I was very determined to be productive when I got home from campus last night. I watched the first dvd of Elizabeth I (I’m showing some clips from the film in class on Thursday to go with our discussion of Elizabeth I’s poetry and speeches) and I graded my essays for the MAUS essay contest. So all in all, I’m pretty pleased with myself for getting something done last night.

Today I plan to spend some time on campus, because I seem to get much more done in my office than do at home. Here’s for an even more productive day!

I try to make a to-do list of things I want to accomplish every day, but I never seem to get too terribly much done. It’s very discouraging. Today, I spent so much time at various doctor’s offices that it’s been hard to get much of anything done so far. However, I’m ever the optimist, it’s only 4:30, and there’s still lots of day left. So here’s what I want to do today (and what I’ve done so far):

Grade TRACE analyses—done!
Grade Issue Proposals
Plan Tuesday’s ENGL 1302 class
Plan Tuesday’s ENGL 2319 class
Finish Beyond Good and Evil—in progress
And (if somehow I get all of this finished at a decent hour)—Grade some Maus essays for the essay contest

I’m just not doing well on this one right now. I pulled an all nighter on Monday because I hadn’t prepared my classes for next week. I haven’t done any reading for my comps in two days. And there’s the inevitable list of household chores that needs to be completed.

But it’s Wednesday morning, and I’m going to keep on trying. Here’s my to-do list for today:

Prepare for Thursday’s classes
Finish the Island of Dr. Moreau
Read more of Orientalism
Fold and put away laundry
Unload and reload dishwasher
Get gas
Get books from the library