So, there was this one time, back when I was in college (and very medicated), that I had a big research paper due, and I had a great idea: what if I get started “early” for once so that I’m not scrambling at the very last minute to finish? I’ll even have some time to proofread it and relax once I’m done, and it will be so nice to enjoy some downtime without the anxiety of the looming deadline!
I legitimately got started on it “early” and was reasonably focused. Most of my attention was directed towards the assignment, not cleaning my toilet or scrolling on Reddit. But guess what? I still wound up scrambling at the very last minute to finish and didn’t get to enjoy any of the supposed perks of starting early.
I think what happened was that since I had “so much time”, I got lost in the research portion of the assignment and really struggled to make much progress on the writing portion until that wave of adrenaline hit.
I realize this is just an anecdote, but that whole experience has made it even more difficult to try and get anything done early. I feel like if I start early, I’m not going to also finish early, instead I’m just going to spend more time on the task, so why bother?
Every time. Try to get ahead of your work? Well, good for you, that first 20% went really well, now let’s spend the next two weeks on “work” that interferes with your other needs and needs to get thrown out because there’s no way it’s integrating with the other 80% that needs to happen within the next hour and also everything that you did for the other 20% is useless and needs to be redone now that you broke it with that tangent.
It’s been a painful summer “preparing” to teach my fall courses.
So, there was this one time, back when I was in college (and very medicated), that I had a big research paper due, and I had a great idea: what if I get started “early” for once so that I’m not scrambling at the very last minute to finish? I’ll even have some time to proofread it and relax once I’m done, and it will be so nice to enjoy some downtime without the anxiety of the looming deadline!
I legitimately got started on it “early” and was reasonably focused. Most of my attention was directed towards the assignment, not cleaning my toilet or scrolling on Reddit. But guess what? I still wound up scrambling at the very last minute to finish and didn’t get to enjoy any of the supposed perks of starting early.
I think what happened was that since I had “so much time”, I got lost in the research portion of the assignment and really struggled to make much progress on the writing portion until that wave of adrenaline hit.
I realize this is just an anecdote, but that whole experience has made it even more difficult to try and get anything done early. I feel like if I start early, I’m not going to also finish early, instead I’m just going to spend more time on the task, so why bother?
Every time. Try to get ahead of your work? Well, good for you, that first 20% went really well, now let’s spend the next two weeks on “work” that interferes with your other needs and needs to get thrown out because there’s no way it’s integrating with the other 80% that needs to happen within the next hour and also everything that you did for the other 20% is useless and needs to be redone now that you broke it with that tangent.
It’s been a painful summer “preparing” to teach my fall courses.