procrastinating on horrible task

[sdwa]

A couple of years ago I got the stupid idea that I wanted to pursue a technical certification. I don’t have a technical background, I just thought it would be cool to be able to say on a resume that I knew about that stuff.

Turns out the 2-hour exam only has a 30% pass rate for people who do have a technical background. So, I almost died struggling to remember four million obscure details and how to apply them using…math? Now, I don’t even know how to set up a basic math problem, because I’m not sure how what I want to know relates to pushing numbers around on a page. But I got some coaching with basic math at the time, and somehow managed to pull it off. I took the test, and scored in the high-middle range. Not a low score, not a super high score, you know, but a respectable score. The thing that gets me about that is knowing that people for whom that type of thinking comes naturally could have gotten the same or better score without expending nearly as much effort.

So here I am, two years later, having to keep up continuing education credits, which I started doing because I thought there is no way in hell that I’m taking another test like that. But even the classes are boring me TO DEATH. I have only a couple of months to complete my requirements, with 8-10 hours to go, of the most excruciating, dry, confusing, monotonous minutiae…. I would like to get out of it, but short of quitting my job, I don’t think I can.

What do you do when you have something you need to do but you hate it and would rather do almost anything else? (I know what you do – you avoid it ’til the last minute, then hyper-focus until it’s over, right?) If you do something differently, or if you can imagine a different and better way even if you never do that yourself, let me know!

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[Anonymous]

This is my dilemma every single day. I know what I should be doing, but I can’t motivate myself to do it. It’s not monotonous, I do enjoy doing it, but I crave something more interesting and would waste a lot of time on the internet or other interests rather than getting the job done. Like now, I have a pile of paperwork that I need to address, but I am procrastinating again.

Lately I have been going into work without my computer, forwarding the phone to voicemail, and having a plan of what I’m going to do and when I will stop doing it. If I didn’t get done what needed to be done, tough. Every day I have to do this, it’s boooring but I am staying on track and it’s less stressful. I’m also working less hours, and getting more done. If I didn’t do this, I’d be up every 5 minutes “rewarding” myself like checking email, surfing, etc. Kind of like what another poster was doing to try to stay motivated to clean her house. Meds help me to slow down and do the boring stuff, which saves my butt.

It also helps to have someone to review it with you and tell you what you should be doing, and follow up. Like a boss. In this case, the boss is my husband since I’m self-employed. I hate authority.

I did successfully achieve a professional accounting designation some years ago (I can’t work in the field, can’t keep all the rules in my head and it was pretty stressful), and I hyperfocused to get through that. But when I started attending CE programs, it seemed as though there were a lot of people who signed up but never paid any attention during the seminars, they all left early! In some ways, it’s just lip service, being a warm body in a room and paying your extra dues, unless you have to pass an exam.

I’m also bad at math, I think I have a math disorder (dyscalculia?)

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[sdwa]

I’m amazed that you studied accounting if you’re not a math person. That’s one of the things I told myself I should study for “job security” but I’d probably die trying. Same thing with writing computer code – I could learn it, but it would take me a hundred times longer than anyone else and I’d probably still be bad at it. In my youth I thought about doing crazy things like going to law school – ha ha – I could never memorize that much stuff, I couldn’t do the logic problems in the LSAT. It’s only taken me thirty years to figure out that I don’t have to pursue a degree in every subject that interests me. This has gotten easier as more colleges post their lectures online.

There are many warm bodies in boring rooms for CE credits, but in this case I have to take an open-book test on the content in order to receive credit…and even with the information right in front of me, I know the math questions will throw me. Even in the questions where they provide the formulas, because I struggle to see how the information should be plugged into the formula.

My boss has always taken a non-management approach to management. He just assumes employees are at their desks doing their work, which for the most part, we are. I have, over the years, repeatedly asked for projects, guidelines, and feedback – but to little avail. If I miraculously stumble upon an activity my boss likes, he lights up like a casino, yet continues to expect me to read his mind…so, whatever. On the bright side, he isn’t a control freak.

In an ideal situation, I’d be doing what I’m actually good at for someone who’d leave me alone to work, but who I’d report to at the end of the day and/or week.

There are reasons why I’ve never had much of a career.

I’d like to be self-employed, but I’d still have to deal with finding a trigger to initiate action. Once I get started, I’m usually OK…unless I forget to stop.

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[Anonymous]

I’m amazed that I did it too. It was study alongside full-time work, one course at a time, so unless you fell behind or failed a course, it was manageable, although the 20 hours of study on top of 40+ hours of work was a challenge, I just hyperfocused on it and ignored everything else. I also did a qualifying year of courses at a community college and that’s how I figured out that I might just be able to be good at it, and kept going.

Maybe your boss is the inattentivesubtype 😉

I’m in that ideal situation, but it’s not a bed of roses. And I often forget to stop, or feel the self-pressure to keep going.

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[nellie]

I think what I learned from going back to finish my BA after 20 years was that I could survive extreme boredom I’m not kidding that was a big deal for me. It was a realization that I made in the midst of a split second decision to quit because the work i was doing was so excrutiatingly boring that it felt like my brain was being twisted around. I experienced some sort of momentary spark of enlightenment and clarity where I recognized the destructive pattern I had followed until then which involved quitting when things became difficult. I guess classic add avoidance patterns. I pushed myself through as a result. But it took another decade andt meds to conquer my laundry pile lol.

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[Anonymous]

nellie, I’ve learned to recognize that pattern too, of quitting when things become difficult. Seeing it and changing it are two different things! Got to go to work now.

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[Anonymous]

The only thing that gets me through is breaking whatever it is up into pieces and just doing one thing.

For example, all week I’ve had this annoying task I kept putting off, and yet it was SO SIMPLE. All I had to do was print the written pieces (already written and released) that ‘d done for a project late last year and put them into a binder for my boss for future reference.

Basic, right?! Yet it seemed impossible because I didn’t know where all the electronic files were (of course). I kept feeling panicky that I didn’t have everything. (Since it was all issued electronically, I hadn’t thought about having to save it.)

But I had procrastinated all week, and today, I thought, I’m just going to start the ball rolling toward getting it done.

Knowing she was not in a rush for it, I told myself, I would just find 5 of those pieces this morning, then 5 in the afternoon, and then forget about it for this week. Then I’ll do the same next week until it’s done.

As expected, getting to 5 turned out to be a piece of cake once I just got down to it, and once I started doing it, I got hyperfocused, ended up formatting it all consistently, creating a table of contents, and formal headings in word… And my boss got the full document with all of the pieces today, and was so thrilled with how official it looked, she’s going to share it with her boss.

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[nellie]

Yes you are very right zaidyma about breaking things up into several steps.

It’s a very ADD thing to not start something as a result – there’s all that forest and yet we can’t see the trees

When I do remember to breathe and think about this things go much better.

I’ve really been struggling with remembering to do this lately so decided to turn over a new leaf with the new year and all. To make things easier the last few days I have been leaving myself “next step “notes in terms of the project I’m working on now. At the end of the day I mark down my next steps so that I can pick up where I left off on something. I must say it helped me get going this morning and not lose time getting back into the work right away.

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[Anonymous]

I have three project commitments that I made in the late fall, kept putting them off because they require extra time (I basically have to re-learn how to do something to complete them). I am forcing myself to finish one of them this week – it’s something that should normally only take a few hours at most, but it’s taken me much longer than that. After this one is done, I’m going to schedule the other two this week. Then, I won’t be making that sort of commitment again! It’s the part of me that loves a challenge and impulsively says yes (without any clue of how much time I need) that keeps getting me into trouble.

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[sdwa]

Nellie – Good for you. Boredom didn’t kill you? After I read your post I forced myself to go through my class. After an hour it became intolerable, and I needed to break it up, get up, walk around, do other things, and come back to it in smaller chunks, I really felt disgusted, frustrated, insanely bored – but I finally finished it (except for the test). What kills me is that it takes 15 hours to do what is supposed to be a three-hour class.

No Dopamine – Yup, I hear that. Not knowing how long things will take, wanting an intellectual challenge, diving in without thinking through the long-term results. Le sigh. And, like you, don’t want to commit to projects that are not in my area – EVER AGAIN. It’s bad enough trying to get myself into the mindset to do things I’m good at and actually like.

Zaidyma – There are days when every step goes on a list and is checked off as it’s completed – even if my brain is so gone that I have to remind myself in writing to photocopy a single document. What got hard for me was jumping back and forth between two screens, trying to remember what was on one page while making notes on another. I can remember about three words at a time. But similar to what you describe – once I get started, even if it’s on something I hate, it’s still hard to stop. Which can be good when something obnoxious needs to be finished right away. Without a looming deadline, I tend to space out.

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[Anonymous]

sdwa: needing a deadline, yup. Which reminds me, I’m supposed to be at work. Yesterday I paid for the days I only half-worked, at a more leisurely pace. Now I’ve got a deadline, so off I go!

I really need to do just ONE thing at a time. Then STOP after finishing it. Then do ONE more thing, if I feel like it. Just ONE, not three things. So really, my to-do list should only be one thing. I’m going to try that for awhile and see how it goes. It’s kind of like tying me down to a chair and forcing me to eat porridge while everyone else is having pizza or ice cream.

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[Anonymous]

Nellie – great idea about the “next step” notes to self. I’ll have to remember that one. (And use it!)

Sdwa – couldn’t agree more about needing a deadline. That was half my problem this week. People do me a favor by giving me less time!

Nodop – feel the pain of over zealously committing to too much at times. Suppose it’s part of the impulsive side for me. When I was younger that often led to a lot of lying to renegotiate expectations. I don’t miss that stress! Still over commit at times, of course.

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[nellie]

So sdwa,

Did you find it a good or bad thing in the end? You did get through it despite the rather long time frame. Whenever I do something similar it is quite an adrenaline rush when I finish. Of course I never want to do whatever it is again either

And no_doapmine – have a similar thing going on with a project I committed to doing last Spring but have not yet started. I’ve now actually scheduled time next week to get started. I decided it would be more likely to get done if I scheduled to come to their office instead of working on my own. It’s a freebie for a non-profit and I am looking forward to doing it on one hand but on the other I need to do this like I need a hole in the head ! However, that said, I thought about it before saying yes for about ….10 minutes at least. Pretty good for me

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[sdwa]

Nellie – I felt relieved that I got it done, despite not enjoying it at all. There is still more of the same ahead, but this was the larger piece of it. And for a few minutes, I remembered what I already knew – that it’s easier to do things than it is to endure the pain of knowing I need to do them and procrastinating. But knowing that doesn’t reduce the pain of starting.

Re: what No Dopamine & Zaidyma are saying about over-committing….One of my problems is that there are so many things I want and need to do, that I can’t decide what to do first,. This tends to paralyze me, especially for projects where I’m not accountable to anyone else, where it’s just for myself that I’m doing it. I have guide-books for doing just about everything I want to do, but I can’t do everything from five different programs.

One thing that helped was a series of visualization exercises – imagining in vivid detail 3-5 things that I needed to do, as if I were actually doing them – then doing them. That was from a program laid out in a book, which started well but got too complicated – then I gave up. Better to stick with the first week.

I could spend all day (and often do) staring into space. What I’d like to find is a consistent method for triggering the “on” switch. Emotionally intense experiences can help, but also lead to situations with their own problems. The medication I’m on helps but is no magic pill when it comes to getting in gear. Overcoming inertia is a huge problem for me.

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