Day 4 - Super Crammer!

Fourth post from the 30-day blog challenge i posted earlier.

Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have

 

I am a crammer. 

I’ll add dawdle and ‘hope it goes away’ as well Hope it comes out as planned. Well, most of the time, I am luck that I still benefit from such a scenario. They say there are many, many reasons why someone procrastinates.  There might be an inward feeling of a fear of failure or fear of success, being in a state of overwhelming feelings or thinking that it seems pointless, or maybe, just laziness. For me, it might be all that.

The worst type of crammer. It works for me, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's a healthy habit. Cramming comes with three very important things - caffeine, 24-hour establishments and  the very distracting temptations of the Internet (Apparently, from the little time I have left, I still manage to squeeze in some "diversion" or maybe its a "distraction". 

I sometimes realize its not good when I get the results... Yes, I might have succeeded, somehow but  I look back and realize that it could have been better. I am a blinded believer of the saying "No pressure, no diamonds." Apparently, i can get the pressure without having to leave everything for later. Hopefully, I could kick the habit as soon as I embark on future endeavors. I am to study law in the near future and a crammer might suffer a terrible demise. 

And for my fellow crammers out there, I searched for things that might be helpful in overcoming this habit (Let's try it together!)

 Overcoming Procrastination by Steve Pavlina --->

1. When you feel stressed, worried, or anxious, it's hard to work productively. In certain situations procrastination works as a coping mechanism to keep your stress levels under control. In his book The Now Habit, Dr. Neil Fiore suggests that making time for guaranteed fun can be an effective way to overcome procrastination. Decide in advance what blocks of time you'll allocate each week to family time, entertainment, exercise, social activities, and personal hobbies. Then schedule your work hours using whatever time is left. This can reduce the urge to procrastinate because you work will not encroach on your leisure time, so you don't have to procrastinate on work in order to relax and enjoy life 
2.  Sometimes you may have more items on your to-do list than you can reasonably complete. This can quickly lead to overwhelm, and ironically you may be more likely to procrastinate when you can least afford it. Think of it as your brain refusing to cooperate with a schedule that you know is unreasonable. In this case the message is that you need to stop, reassess your true priorities, and simplify.Options for reducing schedule overwhelm include elimination, delegation, and negotiation. First, review your to-dos and cut as much as you can. Cut everything that isn't truly important. This should be a no-brainer, but it's amazing how poorly people actually implement it. Be aware that the peak performers in any field tend to take more vacation time and work shorter hours than the workaholics. Peak performers get more done in less time by keeping themselves fresh, relaxed, and creative. By treating your working time as a scarce resource rather than an uncontrollable monster that can gobble up every other area of your life, you'll be more balanced, focused, and effective. 
3. Often we procrastinate because we feel too physically and/or emotionally drained to work. Once we fall into this pattern, it's easy to get stuck due to inertia because an object at rest tends to remain at rest. The solution is straightforward: get off your butt and physically move your body. Exercise helps to raise your energy levels. When your energy is high, tasks will seem to get easier, and you'll be less resistant to taking action. A fit person can handle more activity than an unfit person, even though the difficulty of the tasks remains the same. 
4. We all experience temporary laziness at times, but if you suffer from chronically low motivation and just can't seem to get anything going, then it's time for you to let go of immature thought patterns, to embrace life as a mature adult, and to discover your true purpose in life. Until you identify an inspiring purpose, you'll never come close to achieving your potential, and your motivation will always remain weak. 
5. Even when motivation is high, you may still encounter tasks you don't want to do. In these situations self-discipline works like a motivational backup system. When you feel motivated, you don't need much discipline, but it sure comes in handy when you need to get something done but really don't want to do the work. If your self-discipline is weak, however, procrastinating will be too tempting to resist.  If you really want to overcome procrastination, you must release any attachment to the fantasy of a quick fix, and commit to making real progress. Hopefully you have the maturity to recognize that reading a single article won't cure your procrastination problems overnight, just as a single visit to the gym won't make you an athlete. 
6. Do you ever find yourself falling behind because you overslept, because you were too disorganized, or because certain tasks just fell through the cracks? Bad habits like these often lead to procrastination, often unintentionally.
   The solution in this case is to diagnose the bad habit that's hurting you and devise a new habit to replace it. For example, if you have a problem oversleeping, take up the challenge of becoming an early riser. To de-condition the old habit and install the new one, I recommend the 30-day trial method. Many readers have found this method extremely effective because it makes permanent change much easier.

Good luck and Good skill to us crammers! May we cease to be, as soon as possible :)