# Silverella's 'Stop Procrastinating and Do' thread



## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

I've made some progess in recent weeks - am starting a volunteer opportunity this Fri, have made plans with some friends, waiting on my uni to get back to me about finishing my degree.

The thing I have to conquer now is my motivation levels with regards to actually DOING the step by step, day by day tasks to make my initial steps into something real.

I have volunteered to teach basic literacy skills to a 19 year old girl (speaks English as first language but difficult upbringing/schooling) - I've had time this week to really focus on my teaching materials and come up with a lesson plan and some good ideas but have I done anything yet? NO. I'm meeting with her and our coordinator on Friday afternoon :afr 

I need to start working ASAP and would appreciate encouragement/abuse :lol to make me start and keep going. And I will hold myself accountable and post here if I don't try as hard as I could, or if I f up and laze around and bury my head in the sand, which is my usual reaction to pressure.

The other thing I want to work on is my obsessive behaviour surrounding an ex-friend of mine. Worst, most stupid out of control crush ever especially when considering i'm MARRIED. I've justified checking his social media profiles, etc for so long by saying, 'it's not hurting anyone and i've got nothing better to do anyway...' well, I was wrong. It's possibly hurting my husband indirectly. It's definitely hurting ME. I've got to start treating myself like a proper worthy human being...and have some pride and self respect, and this is why I must STOP.

This one wont be easy as it's a full blown psychological addiction at this point. I will likely slip up at times but again, I will post whenever I do and would appreciate it if you guys could hold me accountable  Oookay...I really don't want to start looking at my teaching materials  but I must.

i) this is the only way I can help someone
ii) I will be letting her down, not just myself if I don't
iii) the sooner I start the easier it'll be


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## Alexa10 (Sep 17, 2011)

*Hear Ya*

I hear ya on the procrastination. I have mild depression, so even though I take pills for it, I still have the unmotivated symptom left over. I'm also terribly unorganized. Do you have any tips for me in college, since you're getting through this yourself? I have a tip for you if you are/gonna be in college: do homework/study for an hour then take a break for an hour, and keep repeating untill a certain time of the day and then stop. It works for me, be I still want to improve my procrastination skills, 'cause for some reason it just won't go away when it comes to organization and procrastinating!


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Ahh i'm terrible at organization too...really I might be okay to teach lieracy but i'm def NOT one to teach organizational skills :lol Even when it comes to job interviews I have a hard time 'embellishing' the truth and blabbing on about how my organizational skills are outstanding...

I think anxiety in part causes lack of organization because knowing you haven't sorted something out properly = fear = avoidance and anxiety. Your tip is a good one though  The only thing I can think of is similar - tell yourself you'll just do 15 mins then start - it's easier that way as you've okayed a way out for yourself if necessary, but I usually find once I start I want to go on and do more.

For college, what helped me was to go to the library. I could never get anything done in the dorms/house. And I didn't manage to keep it up, but to begin with i'd write up my notes and organize everything as soon as I got back from the lecture and that was a great motivator and a big help.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

First goal - 3 hrs work on tutoring book :boogie but soooo TIRED now..

2nd goal - fail. I will start again tomorrow.


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## 390 (Jul 29, 2010)

Hehe, reminds me of the days when I offered to tutor a student who failed a fluid mechanics course. I winged it and still did surprisingly well, he was really pleased with my efforts! But that's not of much help to you. I'm a chronic procrastinator too and I've never had the discipline to follow the 15 minutes/1 hour then break routine. Tried it many times but failed. The only thing that has ever really worked for me is to work in a group. It doesn't even have to be for the same project. Do you know anyone who's writing a report or studying for an exam or something? Arrange to meet with them, just for the moral support and for someone who can tell you to 'suck it up and write your lesson plan you sissy!!!' if you ever get distracted. I've been able to make more progress in one day doing that than I've made in an entire month when I'm on my own.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Thanks, 390. I've worked alongside others before and it does help - except my friends are procrastinators too and we encourage each other in bad habits - like wandering off to the shop/Subway every half an hour :roll Means I can stick it for prety much a whole day rather than just a couple of hours though.

I'm in a HUGE library in DC and will be here until 4 when my learner/coordinator arrive...working pretty well as not really anything else to do here...except waste time on the internet...plus I'm close enough to start worrying about it now which is the best of all motivators. SCARED :afr Also I have the worst cold and can hardly breathe/talk which really isn't going to help :/ Ah well.


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## humourless (Sep 27, 2011)

You are honest with us at least about your crush.....don't fight these thoughts as it may become worse or beat yourself up for being human!...just be aware of them and most likely they will gradually fade by themselves.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

^ I hope so. 

STILL in library. Sooo bored/quiet/tired/faintly depressed  partly it's just the building I'm in, partly nerves - and I'm really wondering if i've bitten off more than I can chew. The open-endedness of tutoring is scaring me - I want to have a set pattern I follow when I talk to my learner but I don't know how she's going to respond, so there's not much I can do to plan and that's really freaking me out :afr

I think what's making me depressed is that I feel like I'm going to completely fail in the dominant role of 'leader' or 'tutor'. I always follow...or go my own way, haha rather than lead and it's a positiion I'm very uncomfortable in, but then that's part of my reasoning for doing this. And I'm afraid the coordinator will be judging me the whole time while I'm talking to my learner. And that she wont be able to understand my accent or hear me properly because of my quiet voice/permasmile/cold :/ eeeek I only have 20 mins and I'm gonna have to head downstairs to meet them :afr

I just feel so wiped out from sitting here all day. I think it would've been better if i'd come in only a couple of hours before meeting. Live and learn!


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## sherbert (Jun 24, 2005)

I wish you luck with that first set of goals. It sounds like you're doing a lot right and if you have made it through college to some degree, then you probably already have a lot of skills already. One of the easiest ways that I have found to do stuff, is to treat certain tasks as if they're appointments. I only speak for myself, but I am great at keeping appointments or following through on arrangements. 

That second issue sounds a lot more complicated. Is it an unrequited love? Is it the notion of 'what if?' that brings some level of security. I would be inclined to see what a psychologist thinks about it. To me, that sounds like a waste of time and I feel like you should make a decision rather than continue to put yourself in that mind-trap.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Sherbet - re. the second issue, yep, maybe I should see someone about it. It's been going on far too long now (9 months! ahhh that's terrible I only just added it up). 

It was complicated due to a lack of communication (thanks again, SA). It was a very intense lust/like at first sight thing which I let get way out of hand. We never spoke directly about it but pretty sure he liked me too. Things just got hugely awkward because there was this huge wall of unspoken tension and embarrassment (going into a bit too much detail now but there was also a language/culture barrier to contend with). We barely said goodbye in the end and circumstances conspired so we didn't have another chance...and that's why I still have this lingering longing  haha it sounds so dramatic and Victorian but feelings are, sometimes. I'm still doing very badly on this goal. I'm wondering if I should take the chance to say goodbye (Facebook mutual friend) when it next comes up to see if that helps, but don't worry - I'm fully aware it could make things much, much worse.

And....my learner DIDN't BLOODY SHOW UP on Friday :lol after all that...but I still met with the program coordinator and had a chat with him and we're going to try to meet again after Thanksgiving - that's if my learner hasn't decided against it. Maybe i'll get matched with someone else. But in the meantime I'm going to start looking at more immediate volunteer opportunities.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

I just got my college credit transfer assessment from the mailbox! Eep...I can't make head or tail of it at the moment - the writing is awful and there's nothing in the enveloppe directly addressing me saying, 'you have been awarded [x number] credits toward your degree program'...the only thing I can make out is 60 written twice :| I will have to go on the internet later and work out how to translate it. as soon as I opened the envelope I felt a horrible dread and guilt and fear come over me - brrr I just hope I don't screw things up as badly again if I do decide to finish studying.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Not done anything else with the Envelope of Confusion and Mystery (and terrible writing) yet...but my volunteer opportunity is looking like rescheduled for this Fri, so I'm back where I was a couple of weeks ago :lol

I've let the friend activities slip again - generally a problem for me. I start okay but don't know how to maintain things. I'm gonna try to meet up with someone Thurs, we will see.

Other goal - desperately horrible. I think I just need more distractions but I'm not going to magically stop thinking about someone with no closure. All I can do is keep redirecting my attention.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

*LIBRARY CLOSED DEC 2ND STAFF TRAINING* :lol I am sat freezing my arse off outside a Starbucks instead. Still meeting up though. Am just waiting for course coord to come back with my student then we're going to find somewhere else. Nervous - less so than last time. Mainly cold. And no sleep last night, literally. So tired.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Finally met my learner! She's really sweet - first lesson planned for next Fri  now I need to have a look at my degree paperwork and i'll have something resembling a life again.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Went for driving practice with husband today :boogie only half an hr tho. Going to actually set a firm goal this time of 1 hr driving tomorrow. It's going to be a very busy day though :| there's not a single day next week where I don't have at least one social engagement and we still need to finish our Christmas shopping by Tues :|


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## Alexa10 (Sep 17, 2011)

**a bit off topic**

Are you by the Library of Congress? Have you ever been there? I'm a total bookworm/cultural history geek so if somebody ever allowed a person to live there, I would, lol. One of my dreams is to go there and spend 5 hours reading there. *is a total bookworm/dork* :b


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

^ No way I just posted on your thread too! 

I wish...i've been to visit and it's beautiful - but I would blatantly sit there staring at the paintings on the walls and wouldn't get any reading done  but anyway, I have to go to the MLK library cos it's closer to where my student lives. It's nice from the outside but kind of depressing inside :|


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

Lesson tomorrow. 6 cocktails :| not drunk exactly, but not really in the mood to plan much either...I did a bit earlier before party so have something at least to go on. and I have tomo morning  bought some sparkly letters to use which are awesome  i'm such a kid still, doh.


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## Silverella (Sep 17, 2011)

My student failed to turn up again on Fri  I have felt pretty shi..ty about it since as I wish i'd tried to phone her to remind her earlier in the week. Typical 'me' behaviour - give something 70% then feel like crap about it. At least i've now emailed the coord to let him know i've been trying to phone since Thurs but haven't been able to get through...hopefully he has another number and we're still on. Really really hope she wants to continue though.


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