Literal Inability to do Work Sooner than the Night Before it's Due

[MTUCache]

Welcome to the world of 90% of 2p2ers.

Smart kids, lots of common sense, plenty of book-smarts, but not willing to do more than they need to in order to get by.

This was me, as well as just about everybody else around here. Skated through highschool with a 3.5 GPA. Graduated from college with two degrees in five years, with honors, while barely doing any studying at all. Got a job that I can do while on the internet and screwing around all day, while getting paid a lot of money. Passed my professional engineering and professional surveying tests with almost no studying whatsoever... just couldn't be bothered.

So here I am... almost 30. Getting paid a pretty decent amount, but certainly not on the "fast track" that's full of kiss-azzes and over-achievers. I get by okay, not great. My condo is messy, I'm fat, and I'm not really all that happy with much of anything.

Find something to get passionate about. Something that you WANT to do. I'm serious here... otherwise you're going to end up in middle-management, smarter than everybody else but going no-where, and constantly regretting not spending your time doing something that excited you instead of just wasting it because you're too lazy.

I honestly think that I could be half as smart as I am right now, and further ahead, as long as I learned to apply myself and genuinely try at something. Instead I just float around thinking that I'm too good or too smart for everything and everyone. Not exactly what I imagined for myself ten years ago.

[john kane]

when you have an option A and option B, and A more fun than B, you will choose A as you can do B later.

However, B only becomes > A when your realise you cant do B later, but you can A, and so your like [censored], i got to do B now.

The problem is that we leave this feeling too late and so dont have enough time to do B, so it is not our best result.

however we realise that we do not need to perform superbly at B, only moderately, hence the feeling of 'oh [censored] i must do B' only kicks in the day/night before.

Right now I should be doing B, i should of for the last 2 weeks, I have chosen A becuase A is more fun, and I know if I work hard on B the next day, it will make up for the fact that I choose A not B. Only when I know I can't make up for not choosing B as I won't leave myself enough time to do B, then I choose B.

So maybe right now, I dont actually need to do B, becuase if I did, I would be right now.

[dethgrind]

[ QUOTE ]
eh this is a major problem for me as well. I am also looking for tips on how to start work earlier (a little each day type deal).

dethgrind, I have tried this and basically I just end up wasting time at the library. I can't make myself work no matter the environment if I don't want to. Plan B?

[/ QUOTE ]

How do you waste time at the library? It's so quiet and boring and everyone around you is studying. The best procrastination I can manage is to work inefficiently, but even that is often good enough.

Aaron Swartz (co-founder of reddit.com) wrote an article on how to be more productive. It was pretty helpful for me, talks a lot about motivation. One of the things I got out of it was that you work hardest on things that are fun, so ideally you should completely convince yourself that your assignments are fun. Either trick yourself or reframe the problem in such a way that it is actually interesting to you.

[leehrat]

lock yourself up in your yaris for a few hours with no distractions and just get er done

[ata]

It only gets worse...... there is no cure... accept the fact that you will do nothing with your life despite being smarter than 99% of people, it is inevitable. I wish I was a dumb chick with big t*ts.

[4ObliVioN4]

I feel your pain OP, I am just as bad if not worse than you are. I am a freshman in college and have a Microbiology midterm tomorrow, have I started studying? Hell no.

[Golden_Rhino]

I have a history paper due in 9 hours that requires me to read two books. I have yet to crack open the second book. That my friends is procrastination.

[Misfire]

I have the ability to do work before it's due, but my results are horrible. With too much time I overthink everything and end up with a worse result. For me, writing papers the night before was +EV.

[T50_Omaha8]

I had a quiz worth 5% of my final grade in mountain geography today, and the teacher gives out all the possible questions ahead of time. I hadn't been to class in a week nor had I read one scrap of the absurd amount of required reading, but I still just went into the quiz blind anyways and guessed on every question because I was too lazy to figure out the answers beforehand.

Why can't everything just be math tests? I hate pointless academia-type classes where I have little or no edge over the other students.

[ut2010]

Same problem. Cannot motivate myself to do anything until the last second possible. Used to think maybe I was an adrenaline junkie, but no just a procrastinator. Have a 3.2 GPA but could do much better.