How to Stop Procrastinating

I know you've done it. You know you've done it. When faced with a lot of work to complete in a short amount of time, after having left said work untouched for several weeks, you type that very sentence into Google. "How do I stop procrastinating?"

STOP IT.

I'm guilty of this. I constantly look up productivity tips, looking for the hidden secret that will bring my lifelong procrastination to a finite end. But guess what? It never works. For several reasons:

1. I never follow the advice. At all. Ever. I've probably visited every result on the first page of Google search results, and I blatanly ignored all of it.

2. I only ever google "how to stop procrastinating" when I have so much work to do that my soul is dying the more I put it off. (And yet.)

3. I'm self-aware. I know I'm doing it. Hell, sometimes I choose to do it. I'm basically beyond help, now. 

Here's the thing: I know myself very well. I know that I get distracted easily while listening to most music. I know reading my textbook from my bed will result in nothing but fatigue and the desire to have a nap. I know that there is no such thing as "only playing Sims for one hour", unless I have some outside motivator forcing my ass out of the chair, and that starting a game early in the morning will chase away the entire day. (Similarily, I know that watching one YouTube video will result in another, and another, and another, and...) I know that, despite my best intentions, I probably won't wake up early on a Saturday morning to get work done, nor can I really count on getting much done on the bus.

I know all these things about myself, AND YET. And yet, I still do all of it. Every bit of it. I extraordinarily overestimate my willpower, without fail, every time. 

In reality, none of these lifehacks will stop you from procrastinating. If you want to put it off, you'll find some BS excuse to put it off. Hell, the very fact that you're spending your time googling these lifehacks instead of actually doing your work is the worst form of procrastination there is. You're self-aware! You know what you're doing!! Why are you still doing it?!?? (I ask myself this very question every day.)

You can tell, based on my uploads, when I feel like blogging. When I have an idea, I don't put it off--I run with it, and my blog goes up right on time. (4PM CST, just like this! Can I get an eyyyyy) I want to upload on time, I want to have regular updates, so I don't put it off. (Much?) But when I'm blanking, I don't want to do it. I don't want to stare at a blank screen and stress about the fact that my brain is crapping out and turning to goo. So if Friday rolls around and I still haven't thought of anything, I just leave it. "Welp, there's always Monday!"

I procrastinate because either A) I don't want to do it (lol homework) or B) I do want to do it, but I'm scared to get it wrong, or I don't know what I'm doing, or the task itself just seems too daunting. I have so many projects that I've quit because I felt like I couldn't pull it off--that it wouldn't be the way I envisioned it.

And that sucks. And it's also really stupid, because how else am I supposed to get better at anything? More importantly, how am I ever supposed to get anything done?

Literally the only way to stop procrastinating is to JUST DO IT. So stop reading this, and just start.

Are you procrastinating right now? No, don't tell me in the comments. Stop it.

Until later,

- Justyne

19 University Rules (BEDS #4)

As you all know, I am a certified University Drop-Out. After attending UPEI for one year, I decided that it wasn't for me, and returned back home so I could focus as much of my time and energy as possible towards writing.

Well, while I was there I observed several things. Early in the year (the first half of my first semester, to be specific), I came up with the 19 Rules of University, which I posted via Facebook. (And occasionally Twitter.)

In celebration of my sisters' first day of school (HAHA), I have decided to share them all with you!

Some of them are helpful. Most of them are not. But I hope you enjoy them, anyway!

~~

1. Don't let your roommate go to the pet store to apply for a job. She'll end up forgetting the application and buying two fish, instead.
2. Coffee is your friend.
3. Don't let your roommate spend 850 dollars on a bike. Because then she'll keep it in the dorm, name it, and fantasize about going to the fair and riding the ferris wheel with it.
4. Your professors are totally allowed to e-mail you with extra homework. Don't be fooled.
5. If your roommate starts calling her bike her boyfriend, run. Fast.
6. Try not to drop your pencil sharpener on the floor. It'll break and spill pencil shavings EVERYWHERE.
7. Spending $40 on posters isn't a good idea.
8. Bookstores = doom. Enter one, and your entire budget is gone.
9. Walking to Dollarama in the rain isn't the best idea.
10. Your profs CAN and WILL assign homework on the first day of school. Be prepared.
11. Wanna annoy your roommate? Play Bop-It!
12. 10/10 times, your roommate is crazy.
13. Never listen to you roommate. Ever.
14. Take ALL of your stuffies with you. They're not safe with your family.
15. It's not necessary to know who you share a bathroom with in residence. Just knock before entering and everything will work out.
16. Don't drop your phone in the toilet. This should be self-explanatory.
17. It doesn't matter how many essays they make you write in high school; writing one for university will always be hard.
18. University profs seem to have an obsession with Times New Roman font. Because apparently, Calibri just isn't good enough for them.
19. Campus becomes a ghost town during Thanksgiving weekend.

Until later,

- Justyne

How to Make a Blog Post

Step 1: Realize it's Friday, and that you have to write a blog post today.

Step 2: Proceed to forget that it's Friday about 50 million times throughout the day.

Step 3: Finally sit down to write the blog post.

Step 4: Go through several crap-tacular topics, rewriting the beginning multiple times until you finally settle on one that you like.

Step 5: Write it.

Step 6: Realize it's actually quite short.

Step 7: Decide you don't care because it's exam week and your brain is mush anyways.

Step 8: Reread several times for spelling and grammar, even though you know that no matter what you do, you'll still read this in a week and spot changes you want to make, anyway.

Step 9: Come up with clever yet somewhat useless tags / labels for the post.

Step 10: Click the bright orange "Publish" button that you somehow manage to misplace every freaking time you blog.

Step 11: Spam pretty much every social media account you possess with links to your new blog post.

Step 12: Spend the next day obsessively refreshing your Blogger dash because watching your view count go up is cool.



Betcha thought this was going to be a helpful post! HA! I sure got you.

So yes, I am in the middle of exams...and my brain is mush as a result. Normally I try to blog based on what I've been thinking about and what's going on in my life, writing wise. But, well, when you're rushing to study / finish assignments because you spent three days watching a 25-episode anime (I knew I would deeply regret this later, but that didn't stop me) and just generally put everything off as long as possible, well....you don't really have much time to think. (Unless you're thinking about Buddhist values and wondering why the hell you can never remember the names of the poems that Dylan Thomas wrote. Those are the topics that have most frequently been on my mind as of late. My brain is a party, I know.)


Stay tuned for next week, when I'll be blogging from the Charlottetown airport. The semester is just about over, AND I AM GOING HOME.


Until then,

- Justyne

And So...

As of 11:20 this morning (Canadian Atlantic Time), I finished my first year of university. (Excluding the exams I have to write during the next two weeks.)

And if you ask me, it's about freaking time.

I will never be able to understand how a semester that is at least a good month and a half shorter than any semester from high school can both feel extremely long and extremely short at the same time. It plays with my mind, and I don't like it.

But either way, it's over now. I only have one term paper to write, four exams to take, a lot of packing to do, two flights to catch and in two weeks I'll be blogging from my parents basement.

I'm shooting for the stars, clearly.

Seriously, though, it's gotten to that point of the school year. You know what I'm talking about. The point when it really doesn't matter what courses you're taking, where you're taking them or who you're taking them with--you honest-to-God could not care less about school anymore. (This is made obvious by the fact that I am blogging instead of writing the term paper that's due on Tuesday.)

I honestly think that everyone starts the school year with the best of intentions. We have shiny new binders and brand-spankin'-new paper and millions upon millions of pens and pencils just waiting to be used. We have our class schedules mapped neatly out before us, and we tell ourselves, "This year will be different! This year I will finish all of my homework the day it has been assigned, I will study for all of my tests weeks before I take them, and my notes will be neat and perfect!"

HA HA HA. We're so funny.

I can't even begin to count the number of times I've told myself this at the beginning of the school year. And for the first couple weeks or so, I somewhat manage to pull through with it.

But then something happens. Something comes up. I decide to watch a movie instead of doing my English readings. "It's no big deal," I say. "I can catch up this weekend."

And it continues. I leave entire papers until the day before they're due. I fall weeks behind in my class readings. My notes are either illegible or non-existent. "No big deal," I say. "I can catch up this weekend."

And then a day comes when I take one look at the calendar and one look at my ever-growing to do list and realize, "I cannot physically do all of this in one weekend."

And that is that point. That point in which I dismiss my unfinished readings with a careless wave of my hand. That point in which I stop trying to pay attention in class, whip out my journal and write for the entire period. That point in which I honest-to-God could not care less about anything my professors have to say, because hey, the semester's over, anyways, and I'll forget absolutely everything I've learned over the summer, because who the hell actually deeply analyzes literature in their spare time to begin with?

That point is also the point where you are avoiding pretty much anything school related, but you can't really do anything you truly love to do because then you'd feel guilty that you're not studying. So instead you end up browsing through Facebook or Tumblr or random Wikipedia articles, and even though you know that you'll totally hate yourself for it at the end of the day, it's still totally okay because at least for now you can push back that guilt and post 20 tweets in three minutes.

Clearly, we're all shooting for the stars.

If you're waiting for my point to this post, the conclusion to this long, drawn-out entry, the wise message hidden behind my run-on sentences and excessive use of italics...then you're clearly wasting your time and putting way too much faith in me. I have no message of wisdom to pass along to you guys this week; these are only my observations as I continue to procrastinate my own studies.

It may not have anything to do with writing, but hey, at least it gives me something to write about.


Until later,

- Justyne

Distractions

I have tried writing this blog post several times throughout the day, but I have realized that it is a slightly difficult thing to do when:

A) You have a Sims game open and taunting you from your taskbar.

B) You're going through yet another Sailor Moon phase and you're watching the fifth and final season for the first time. (This is the first time I've had a new episode since I finished the first season in Japanese in grade 9 or 10 and was introduced to several episodes that weren't dubbed into English. I'm excited. Don't judge.)

C) Your friend invite you to watch hockey with them, and despite the fact that you have no interest in hockey whatsoever, you still find yourself amusingly distracted by their screaming and yelling and discussions with other friends invited to watch said game.

D) School has been cancelled due to a blizzard (the second one this week. Welcome to Canada.), and as a result you feel inclined to use this as an excuse to do nothing.

E) You have a Sims game open and taunting you from your taskbar.

I would like to point out, however, that these are not excuses for not getting a blog post up. This is a blog post. It's up. If you would ever so kindly check your calendar, it is still Friday. (Albeit somewhat late on Friday.) So who's laughing now?

(Probably no one.)

Regardless of what they are, distractions are...well, a pain in the butt. They're at the very core of procrastination, and can easily turn a 5-minute break into a 3-hour one. This applies for all things, and not just writing. (But for our purposes, we'll focus on writing.)

Avoiding distractions are....kind of impossible. Something will always come up. Always. Don't bother trying to tell yourself that it won't, because I'm telling you that it will. That's life. That being said, a good system can help you avoid the most notorious of these distractions. (I'm looking at you, Facebook.) Things work differently for everybody, but here's just a few of the things I've picked up this past year:

1) Create a set time to write.

I'm not telling you to schedule every single minute of your day. That's just ridiculous. (And unrealistic. Have you had the pleasure of meeting Life?) I'm saying to make a point of setting aside a certain amount of time every day (or almost every day, I'm not picky) to write, and only write. It doesn't have to be the same time every day; just make sure you put in the effort to write. (I find it easier if I spend my writing time first, before doing anything else.)

This time is your Writing Time. Don't feel inclined to spend an absurd amount of time on it--I settle with a half hour. Less is better than more. When the time runs out, you can always keep going. Just don't stop before it runs out, and you'll be okay.

2) Close that freaking internet browser.

You can even block distracting websites, if you feel so inclined. (Cold Turkey is a fantastic program for PCs.) Just close your browser of choice and don't let yourself re-open it until your writing time has expired. 

3) Turn that phone off.

Or put it on silent, or hide it under your bed. Do you know how much writing time can be wasted just texting somebody? And then you think, "Oh, I'll just check Facebook quickly...Oh, gotta restock my tower (I'm referring to Tiny Tower. Fantastic game for smart phones, but not the point)...Well, now they've texted me again, I have to reply..."

See what I mean? Just hide it. It's only half an hour. I believe in you.

4) Turn on your music.

I tend to have a special playlist dedicated to each project I'm working on, full of songs that best describe the feeling of the story. Make a playlist of songs that work best for you--be them instrumental, upbeat, or super angst-y ballads.  Plug in your headphones, crank up the volume (I cannot be held liable for any loss of hearing that may occur), and....

5) Write!

Distractions are gone. Set up a timer on your phone, or on a website (I don't have any links on hand. If you don't know how to work Google, then I guess you're out of luck), and start writing until either the timer runs out or you run out of steam (whichever comes second).

Will these get rid of every single distraction in your life? No, not really. (See items A-E mentioned above.) But I find that they help. Take the time to find what works for you.

Don't beat yourself up if you can't find time to write absolutely every day. If you have a video / powerpoint presentation and a paper due the next day that you've barely started (that may or may not have been my Wednesday situation), then please, for the love of all that is good in the world, don't worry about writing. It can wait. Believe it or not, there are some things that are more important than writing.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an open Sims game taunting me from my taskbar. Some distractions you just can't avoid.

Until later,

- Justyne

Writer's Block

Writer's Block: An illness which plagues writers across the globe, and has no definite cure. Symptoms include procrastination, staring at a blank Word document for twelve hours, and concussions induced by throwing one's head against a brick wall in frustration. 9/10 writers today suffer or have suffered from Writer's Block. (The other one is lying.)

(Come on, you guys totally saw this blog post coming. I figured I'd get it out of the way early. Although I may or may not end up writing about this again. If and when that time comes, you can blame the Writer's Block.)

I've been suffering from a particularly bad case of Writer's Block for about....well, since last semester ended, basically. I don't know whether it's the lack of motivation, lack of ideas, or just the piece I'm trying to write, but every time I sit down to work on it I'm only just barely able to crank out a few words. If I'm lucky.

So what do I do instead of writing? I play Sims for six hours. I scroll endlessly through my Tumblr dash. I do homework, for crying out loud. (Homework! Oh, how I miss the days when I chose writing over homework.)

Put simply: Writer's Block is a pain in the butt.

You'd think that after nine years of writing, I'd know how to chase it away, or at least push it back far enough that I can crank out more than a sentence a day. And yet, here I am. Staring at a blank Word document. Doing homework (homework!!). Inducing concussions by throwing my head against the brick walls of my dorm room.

Writer's Block is not fun.

I could give you the obvious pointers for Writer's Block--take a break, work on something else, go for a nice, long walk to clear your mind--but to be completely honest, I think all of those "pointers" are complete bull. They don't work for me. Heck, my "break" is turning into a semester-long hiatus from writing. These pointers are too....nice.

It's time to declare full-out war on Writer's Block.

1. Kill somebody.

Not literally. Please, for the love of God, do not go terrorizing teenagers at summer camp. Take someone in your story--or poem or whatever it is you happen to be writing--and kill them. This doesn't have to be a permanent thing--feel free to start writing this scene in a fresh document, if you like. Just kill them. Stick an ax in their head, throw them off a balcony, hire a werewolf to jump out of the bushes and mangle them to death. Anything goes. The aftermath is something that'll take chapters to cover. And who knows--it might be just what your story needs.

2. Personify Writer's Block.

Don't have a character to kill? Kill Writer's Block. Make it a character. Let's call him Wallace Blomm. (My apologies to any Wallace's or Blomm's or Wallace Blomm's out there. This is strictly business, nothing personal.)

Now kill him. Most gruesome thing you can imagine. Go watch any of the nine hundred Saw movies, those have plenty of material. (I would assume, anyway, judging from the first five minutes I saw of Saw IV.)

3. Do something completely drastic.

(Could I be more vague?) Think of the one thing you would never ever ever ever, in a million years do to your characters, or to your plot, or to the entire story as a whole. Got it? Now do it. Again, you can use a fresh document if you like. All of this stuff can be rewritten. Don't be afraid to totally change absolutely everything about your story thus far and do a complete 180 turn in a different direction.

4. Write the ending first.

I don't mean "write the ending now to stick at the end later." Start re-writing your story, starting with the ending and working your way backwards. Tell the story exclusively through flashbacks. (I've never tried this, but hey, it's something new. Maybe it'll work. Be sure to let me know if it does.)

5. Just freaking write.

I know I probably sound like a complete hypocrite saying this. (I mean, I'm doing homework instead of writing! What could I possibly know?) And this is definitely one that doesn't always work quite as well as you hope, nor is it ridiculously easy. But that's the point. It's not easy. Nothing about writing, or Writer's Block, is ever easy. If it was, we'd all be published millionaires by now. Sometimes the best, and only thing you can really do, is write. Screw Writer's Block. Power through it. Show it who's boss.

Now, if you excuse me, I have some writing to do. A certain Mr. Blomm needs an ax thrown into his skull.


Until later,

- Justyne

Motivation

We all know what it feels like to lack motivation. To put off a huge paper until the day before it's due, spend 12+ hours slaving away at it until it's somewhat decent, and swear that you will never let this happen again--that next time, you'll start it a good week before, and finish it with time to spare. And then you ignore your promise, putting through the torture of procrastination all over again.

Or maybe that's just me.

It doesn't seem to matter how good my intentions are in the beginning--I just don't have the motivation to start something until mere hours before I'm due to hand it in. It's not that I necessarily want to put it off. It just sort of...happens.

But that shouldn't happen in writing, right? I love writing. I should want to do it every minute of every day. It should be as easy as breathing.

Except....not really.

Am I the only one who has these problems? I do want to write, I really do. It's just....hard, sometimes. There's no motivation.

Last semester, I had motivation. Last semester, I was in a Creative Writing class. I had a new piece of writing due every two weeks. I was always writing, and I loved every second of it.

In November, I had motivation. November is National Novel Writing Month--or NaNoWriMo, for short--a global event in which writers everywhere drop everything they're doing and write a 50,000+ word novel in 30 days. I wrote every day in November, and I had a blast.

But now? I barely write once a week. I'm too busy worrying about homework, and where I'm going to live next year, etc etc. I just don't have the motivation.

But how do I find it?

Everyone has a different way to motivate themselves. Some people bribe themselves with chocolate, or do something special at the end of a busy week for completing a job well done. Some people don't even need any form of external motivation--they work hard just because they like to. (Ambitious jerks.)

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge fan of the Sims franchise. I started playing the Sims 1 in 2005/2006, and have been hooked ever since. (And by "hooked," I really mean "slightly obsessed.") This past Tuesday, the Sims 3: University Life expansion pack was released. Needless to say I almost peed my pants in excitement.

Problem was, it was released during what happened to be the biggest week of the academic year. I had three papers due, a quiz to study for, and a presentation to start planning. Not exactly my luckiest week. Still, I wanted to play that game. Badly.

So I used it to my advantage. I used it as motivation.

I printed a copy of the cover art and taped it above my desk.

 Every time I felt stressed

or frustrated

or positively overwhelmed with the amount of work I still had to do

I took a post-it, wrote "Friday" on it, and stuck it up around my desk, among the reminders, to-do lists, calendars, and essay tips I already had clogging my work space.

By the time Friday finally hit, I had written the word 44 different times, on 25 different post-its, in 3 different languages and at least 9 different fonts.

And y'know what? It worked. It freaking worked.

I locked away my phone. I stayed off of the internet. And I got stuff done.

Amazing what motivation is actually capable of doing. Now all that's left is to figure out how I can motivate myself to this extent every week--and in terms of writing.

But for now, I'm not worrying about that. I've waited all week. I've been incredibly patient.

Now I've got some Sims to play.


Until later,

- Justyne