“Change and Procrastination”

COPE/MECA

Submitted by:
Ward Bond

2012/02/21

Why do I procrastinate?In the context of class preparation I fear that I will not be able to efficiently and comprehensibly communicate my knowledge of the subject. Also the written word holds a lot of import to me. So to submit a piece of written work with subjective interpretation is uncomfortable exposure.

I have had many experiences in the educational system where I have to submit myself to someone whose own impartial subjective is circumspect. And yet I have used this reason as an excuse to cover up my own fears surrounding writing.

Finding my own voice, and combining it with a simple elegance that captures my personal flare is difficult to do. So why even try. This statement seems on the surface to point towards perfectionism. I have always made the simple inference from this absurd statement that I am lazy. But in reality I am terrified of how much time it takes to write anything well. It can can consume hours of ones life. Trapped in ridged format. Slower than real-time, blindly communicating to an audience with whom I have no immediate feedback. Thus no ability to guide content to ensure comprehension of the reader.

I have noticed that when others combat procrastination that it seems to have a feedback loop; as the longer one goes not performing up to standard, the greater the pressure to perform rises. Mounting in an anxiety that them becomes it's own barrier to over come. Observing this, I came up with a self preservation technique to prevent this from happening .I gave myself permission to have the motto: “I don't procrastinate, I just don't do it.”

As you can see this has some flaws. But given my personality and skill set at the time it was making the best of a no win scenario, you see i had noticed that I often had no problem completing a task when pressure to perform was removed. Usually better than when I tried to conquer it with sheer will. Often-time over preparation would cloud my ability to clarify and prioritize information and my ability to use it quickly and easily. At best my ability to govern my whole process would more accurately described as shepherding.

The thin red line in my battle field might seem on the outside seem to be my difficulty getting words written down onto paper. It is actually a step further back in the process.

How does one read to understand something which one does NOT feel like reading in time to have the content be absorbed in to our personal perceptual matrix. When I read in my head, it is not the same way I read out-loud. I tend to look shapes of paragraphs on the page and then the sentences pop into my head all at once. Apprehended not in the chronological order written but in some other order efficiently processed by my brain. Oddly enough I have to be emotionally prepared for the focus necessary for this to happen. If I try to force myself to read when I don't feel like it the meaning of the sentences seems to blur into disturbing rendition of the teachers from 'Peanuts'.

I think that I have been “forgiving” myself the wrong way. Rather than dealing with the feedback loop by giving myself permission not to do it. I will redefine my inability to read through