Will's Journal

[Will]

I'm sorry, I'm not up for making a better title at the moment. I definitely use the Internet to procrastinate on my schoolwork. I am doing a research paper right now, and maybe it's because I'm a freshman math major, but it's really hard. I don't even know anything small things I can do to quickly make a little progress on my essay. I usually end up procrastinating for the whole day.

I like comedy, so I watch a lot of Saturday Night Live on YouTube (you can tell I watch a lot because I capitalize YouTube correctly), especially the most recent season.

Edited July 28, 2018 by Will
added stuff

[Cam Adair]

Hi Will! Good job starting your journal. Maybe someone else here who's worked on research papers can share some help for you.

[Will]

Day 1/90

It happens that my family and our friends decided to go out today, so I had very good reason to stay on the detox. I am willing to do the detox but I don't know if I will follow through. I have tried it already and gradually broke it. I'm writing a research paper and the urge to procrastinate got to me (my main problems right now are YouTube and Reddit). It got back to the point at which I didn't know how to stop.

However, I have been on indefinite leave from video games and videos of games for about a month. I think I failed to quit once before but this time has been quite successful. Of course, I could swing back again, my addiction to other things shows that.

Edited July 29, 2018 by Will
added second paragraph

[Will]

Day 2/90

Went to church. Listening to music more. Still not doing anything with my time though, which I really need to do because I have to write a paper. practicing violin and preparing for my audition sucks, I get tilted so easily

[Cam Adair]

How are you organizing your time/day? A calendar or agenda will help a lot!

[Will]

Day 3/90

I'm not organizing my day. Comics are too much, I should stay out of the library.

[Cam Adair]

Success is when preparation meets opportunity.

If you want to be more successful, organize your day. Be intentional in how you spend your time. Your actions create your results.

[Hmmge]

Regarding writing scientific papers: "Don't worry, be crappy" - Guy Kawasaki

It often feels like you need to do something extraordinary, has to be perfect, has to blow people's minds, but that's not a good approach once you find yourself procrastinating. It's much better to just accept that you are not a flawless genius and just start writing/researching/experimenting the best way you currently can and if it's crappy, so be it, write it down. This way, you start doing SOMETHING and through the process of doing SOMETHING to the best of your abilities, you will not only stop procrastinating but also create something that is much better than you thought it was going to be. 

[Will]

I'm scared of this assignment. I wrote a little today, which may or may not be because I ran into a friend who was studying too, but I can't shake the feeling that it's not enough.

Also I didn't read comics today.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Will

[Will]

Day 5/90

I did a jigsaw for 5.5 hours. I just wanted to do one part of it and a bunch of the pieces were flipped over, so I flipped over a bunch of pieces one by one, which led to me working on different parts of the puzzle which led to me doing a lot more and learning the in's and out's of the puzzle and then spending a whole bunch of time. At some points I would check the time repeatedly, but I would just brush off any concerns without thinking about it. It likely won't happen again. I know I'm not supposed to think something is wrong with me but you know. Oh also I have anger issues.

Still proceeding very slowly on my research paper. Concerned I won't finish my rough draft by my Monday deadline.

[Will]

Day 6/90

Seems like every day I have a new excuse. Today I spent a lot of time waiting for the new player rankings for Super Smah Bros Melee. I didn't quit Melee very long ago. At least all of the rankings are published now. I did continue to avoid watching Melee, as one of the largest tournaments of the year is going on right now and I didn't watch it today. There are two or three days left, but I got this.

I got a book from the library on procrastination.

I don't understand how I can spend so much time on things that shouldn't take that much time, like checking Twitter or sitting and doing nothing.

Edited August 3, 2018 by Will

[Will]

Day 8/90 (journal written on day 9)

Hmmm shit. I mostly just forgot to post, but it is partially due to the stress of writing as well. Nowadays, I still procrastinate a lot, but most of the procrastination is just sitting in front of my draft. I also spent some time reading "The Procrastination Equation". My draft is due tomorrow. 

[giblets]

Hey Will! I am curious about how you are going with your research paper. I am writing one for the first time this semester and the whole idea/concept of it is so daunting that I have not started at all - something I need to overcome very quickly.

I'll check out that book! I think you'll benefit from Jocko's podcast as well, he covers a lot on discipline.

[Will]

Day 9/90 (written on day 10)

Went pretty badly again. Was very tired, really need to do something about that

[Will]

Day 10/90

Went marginally better, as in I wrote something before 5:00. I'm very close to done with "The Procrastination Equation," so I'll stop just reading the book and start applying strategies from it.

I need something to do in my free time. I feel like a lot of things are potentially addicting.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Will

[Will]

On 8/5/2018 at 4:13 PM, giblets said:

Hey Will! I am curious about how you are going with your research paper. I am writing one for the first time this semester and the whole idea/concept of it is so daunting that I have not started at all - something I need to overcome very quickly.

I'll check out that book! I think you'll benefit from Jocko's podcast as well, he covers a lot on discipline.

Thanks for the podcast but oooo it is long, I don't really want to listen to it. This paper sucks dude. I haven't written papers of this size before and I don't feel like I know the topic very well. I feel the same way you do.

Can you ask a librarian for help? At my school, you can sign up for an appointment with a librarian, even a librarian who specializes in the field that your topic is in, to help with your research. We also have a place for help with writing and, to a lesser extent, research. It helps a lot more if you go in with specific questions that will give your essay direction when they are answered.

Google Scholar, public library databases, university databases. Some databases are more specialized, like social studies. When in doubt, there's probably a filter for more relevant articles, articles that are referenced the most. Think of different keywords you can look up. My teacher recommended looking at specific authors, like if I find a good paper I should consider looking at other work from those authors. I think she recommended that because my topic doesn't have that much research in it, especially in English :).

Looking at a lot of scholarly work might be difficult to get through. If you have a specialist you can go to, good, idk but maybe instead of reading everything by yourself it would be more efficient to scan it for passages that are probably useful and ask to go through it with them. I'm guessing that when you find a paper you often won't have to read the whole thing so look through, keeping in mind questions that will specifically apply to your paper. I used mostly books, definitely only reading a little.

You know the drill: just write. Fuck order, clarity, fuck everything :), if you immediately think of a correction that is fine. I struggle with this a lot. You might create separate documents or spaces for different topics.

When you say it's daunting, are you talking about the length of the paper, potential amount of research you will have to do, other?

There must be some kind of tricks you can do to put the length of the paper out of your mind, like shrinking the window so you can't see the white space that you still have to fill in, or once you have a page of writing, you never have to see white space again.

Edited August 7, 2018 by Will

[Will]

Day 11/90

Yeah it went a little better. I guess I have a draft, but it's probably not done and I think it's a page below the minimum. The rough draft was due yesterday.

[Will]

Day 16/90

was out for most of the day. Watched an episode of pokemon with a friend, might be slipping in other ways too

[Will]

Day 17/90: getting complacent

[Will]

Day 20/90

Kate Beckinsale took up most of my day. I've had similar problems during this detox before now but never on this scale. Missed replying to some messages but I did something that I should've done earlier

[Will]

Day 23/90

I went on a retreat, it was fun.

[Will]

broke detox loool

[Cam Adair]

1 hour ago, Will said:

broke detox loool

What happened?

[Will]

My friend was watching a movie and I watched with him. I didn't even think about it. Then today I "took full advantage" of the break in my detox.

[Deku]

IMO you only really fail when you stop trying. Don't worry about breaking your detox, just remember the commitment you made to improving yourself and start over again. Keep going, I want to see more posts in your journal!