Chapter 5 Flashcards
(13 cards)
Have habits of procrastination had an impact on your life? If so, how?
What types of stories have you heard other people tell about why they procrastinate?
Can you see the holes in some of these stories?
What holes are in your own stories about procrastination?
List some specific actions you could take that would help you curb habits of procrastination without relying very much on willpower.
DISTRACTION AND PROCRASTINATION
Procrastination is one of our generation’s biggest problems.
We have so many distractions. I am always thinking, ‘Before I start my homework, let me just check my Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and e-mail.’
Before I even realized it, I wasted at least an hour.
Even after I finally start my homework, I have those distracting websites open in the background.
“I need to find a way just to focus on my studying and homework.
I think it depends a lot on my environment and the time. I should not be waiting until the last minute to do everything.”
A LITTLE GOES A LONG WAY
When a student complains of failing and tells me he studied for ten whole hours the day before the exam, I answer, ‘That’s why you failed.’
When the student looks at me indisbelief, I say, ‘You should have been studying a little bit all along.’”
Why do we procrastinate? Have you ever procrastinated? If so, why and how?
We procrastinate about things that make us feel uncomfortable.
Medical imaging studies have shown that mathphobes, for example, appear to avoid math because even just thinking about it seems to hurt. The pain centers of their brains light up when they contemplate working on math.
Why can procrastination be painful? Has it ever caused you pain? What about it is painful?
Anticipation is painful. When the mathphobes actually do the math, the pain disappeared.
“The dread of doing a task usesup more time and energy than doing the task itself.”
How can procrastination be a bad habit? Do you have an example of having a bad habit that you engage in when procrastinating?
Procrastination is a single, monumentally important “keystone” badhabit.
A habit, in other words, that influences many important areas of yourlife.
Change it, and a myriad of other positive changes will gradually begin to unfold.
How can you make anticipation painless?
It’s easy to feel distaste for something you’re not good at. But the better you get at something, the more you’ll find you enjoy it.
Is procrastination addictive? Why or why not?
Procrastination is like addiction. It offers temporary excitement andrelief from boring reality.
What are some why’s your brain tries to trick you into procrastination? How can you spot them and avoid them in the future?
It’s easy to delude yourself that the most profitable use of any given moment is surfing the web for information instead of reading the textbook or doing the assigned problems.
You start to tell yourself stories.For example, organic chemistry requires spatial reasoning—yourweakness—so of course you’re doing poorly at it. You devise irrational excuses that sound superficially reasonable: If I study too far ahead of a test,I’ll forget the material. (You conveniently forget the tests in other courses you’ll be taking during exam time, making it impossible to learn all thematerial at once.)
Only when the semester is ending and you start your desperate cramming for the final exam do you realize that the real reason you are doing so badly in organic chemistry is that you have been continually procrastinating.
How can procrastination negatively affect your health and overall confidence?
Over time, your habitual, zombie like response in obtaining those temporary dollops of pleasure can gradually lower your self-confidence, leaving you with even less of a desire to learn how to workeffectively.
Procrastinators report higher stress, worse health, and lower grades.
As time goes on, the habit can become entrenched.
At that point,fixing it can feel hopeless
What is procrastination?
Procrastination is avoiding work and responsibilities because they make us feel uncomfortable and pain when we anticipate the work.
