{"id":34911,"date":"2013-08-15T10:30:53","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T14:30:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=34911"},"modified":"2013-08-29T13:30:49","modified_gmt":"2013-08-29T17:30:49","slug":"overcoming-procrastination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/?p=34911","title":{"rendered":"Overcoming Procrastination"},"content":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Elinor Crosby, Head Editor, INALJ Nova Scotia<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Overcoming Procrastination<\/span><\/h3>\n

\"elinorcrosby01\"<\/a>Hello, my name is Elinor and I am a procrastinator.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been getting better as I get older, but I\u2019ve always been an at-the-last-possible-minute kinda gal. As a child I found my schoolwork easy, so I spent my time reading instead, and then did my work the night before it was due. This habit persisted into adulthood, though it became driven by a different psychology. If I handed in something rushed, or overdue, or didn\u2019t hand anything at all, I was failing because I chose to, not because of someone else\u2019s judgement. It was a twisted fear of failure, and of constantly feeling like I wasn\u2019t good enough.<\/p>\n

Well, now I know I\u2019m good enough, but I still struggle with my procrastination sometimes. This leads to job applications sometimes going in just before deadline<\/strong>, even though I know better! I\u2019ve gained a lot of confidence in the last twenty years, and also some coping mechanisms for when my doubts start rearing their ugly heads.<\/p>\n

My number one strategy for overcoming procrastination is the Swallow the Toad philosophy.<\/strong> Basically, if the first thing you do when you get up in the morning is swallow a toad, you won\u2019t run into anything worse for the rest of the day! I have applied this to phone calls I hate making, doing my taxes, and now to job applications. If I don\u2019t give myself the opportunity to put an unpleasant task off until later, I also don\u2019t have the time to stress myself out about it.<\/p>\n

My number two strategy is finding someone to be accountable to.<\/strong> This is useful for longer term work, or really big events. If I tell someone I\u2019m going to do something, I feel more obligated to do it. My brain is weird.<\/p>\n

Strategy number three is to actually work on things like my resumes and cover letters when I don\u2019t have a deadline looming<\/strong>; then it becomes more of a design and writing exercise. I completely revamped and reworked my LIS resume recently while in between job application deadlines, and it was very satisfying and I\u2019m pleased with the end result.<\/p>\n

Do you procrastinate? Have you come up with anything that helps you not do it? Please share!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0Elinor Crosby, Head Editor, INALJ Nova Scotia Overcoming Procrastination Hello, my name is Elinor and I am a procrastinator. I\u2019ve been getting better as I get older, but I\u2019ve always been an at-the-last-possible-minute kinda gal. As a child I found my schoolwork easy, so I spent my time reading instead, and then did my work…<\/p>\n

Read more \u2192<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":28310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[145],"tags":[5100,69,3592,4388,4387,5098,5099],"class_list":["post-34911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles","tag-accountability","tag-article","tag-blog","tag-elinor-crosby","tag-inalj-nova-scotia","tag-procrastination","tag-strategies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/883028_10152624942125577_1841687630_o.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1WoMK-955","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=34911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inalj.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=34911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}