Procrastinating / Focusness

A

ADMIRALSTOCKDALE

Guest
after much thought, i've decided that i have some kind of mental block that prevents me from doing things. i'm not a lazy person - i work long hours, i work hard and always make my deadlines, it's just that i put things off. most of the time it feels like there are too many things on my mind - that it's hard to concentrate on any one thing and so it's almost like a mental "throw your hands up in the air" "approach".
i want to change this about myself. is focusness a skill that can be honed or is it genetic? i guess like most things it's a combination of the two...
anyone have any experience overcoming this behavior?
 
I feel this way all the time ... some days, I"m a ******* machine, and it's not always the near-the-deadline days. But other days, I'm worthless, even when there's plenty to do.

Have you tried reading and really taking some time to internalize some of the good management books out there? I've really taken two to heart - not because I think they're the end-all-be-all of management philosophy, but because they seemed to apply best to me. First, Break All the Rules and 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I really liked 'first' because it spoke to how my current personal manager situation wasn't all that great and let me see how I'd like to manage people in the future - it gave me something to work towards, and it gave me words to explain my feelings with my current situation. 7 Habits was AWESOMe because it gave me things to work on each day. In fact, just today I bought the 7 Habits workbook - never done it before, but it's a series of daily exersizes designed to help you implement the 7 Habits in your daily life.

Let's be clear - I'm not an MBA do-gooder with no clue what the real world looks like, and I'm not the strange guy at the end of the hall who thinks he has answers for everything. Those two books absolutely changed how I approach work on a daily basis, and I feel they've made a difference in a positive manner.

Good luck - I think it's clear that you do good work, and you'd just like to optimize your day-to-day operations a bit. Every talented individual feels this way - make those positive changes and come tell us about it in a year, so we can all benefit from your learning.
 
In many ways, I am just like a superstar professional athlete. Most days I bring my most awesome A game, others, I'm a ******* B-. That's just the way it is, baby.
 
In college I knew I could write two decent pages an hour, so I used to set my alarm for the middle of the night, and allocate myself the exact number of hours it would take to write the paper prior to when it was due. I wrote the vast majority of my thesis in four days.

I still think that procrastination is often driven by perfectionism. If I don't feel like I can do something well or completely, then I do not want to do it. Basically I never feel like I am done with a task, because I never feel like it is done to my satisfaction, so I have to have a deadline that requires me to actually finish something. I think that is especially manifested in the writing. If I started something a few weeks early, I would just rewrite until the deadline anyway.

I also have trouble beginning seemingly simple tasks. Like I get overwhelmed by doing my expenses or going through my mail. I think I just let tasks become much more difficult in my head than they are in real life, and am unable to make any progress on them until I absolutely must.

I do have ADHD, and I have never been lazy or struggled in school. I have always been a hard worker and an over-achiever, I just do it on a time schedule that makes my life as difficult as possible, but I probably subconsciously enjoy the pressure as well.
 
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