Procrastination personified What's wrong with me?

[ImaPrimaDonna]

I just feel that I can't kick myself up the backside unless a deadline is looming. A form had to be in today, it was important and might impact my child's choices going foward, so why the heck did I stay up late last night to complete it. Then talk myself into going to bed and finishing it at the crack of dawn. But oh no, obviously there not enough time, so completing form with stuff and loads of photocopies- finishing off in the car to drive over to hand it in. What the heck is wrong with me? I don't enjoy this craziness as I'm now late for work and had to reschedule my meetings. Any ideas anyone.. I can't continue like this-

Ok thank you all. I haven't looked up the links yet but will do when I've got a moment. Just spent the last hour doing a report before submitting, but that was because I was too tired from staying up last night.
Anyway you've made me laugh out loud. Will post later as I'm interested in the psychology of this.

Yep, I belong on this thread! For some inexplicable reason, I seem to keep taking things on too, when I can barely cope with what I have to do! (Masters I'm looking at you!) I have a looming Tuesday deadline and a lot of work still to do. Christmas? Hahahahah...

Now, if I don't go and get dressed I will miss my train. I loathe the stress of living life by the skin of my teeth, but can't seem to change. Self sabotage I think.

I do well in a crisis, it's the day to day shit I can't manage. No adrenaline rush. Have ADHD and executive brain functions are my enemy. Unless I'm interested, in which case I am a hero.

Sadly I have no interest in laundry or cleaning the house.

I’m so like this. Always have been, I was a homework-on-the-bus type of girl. I’m in awe of people who have Christmas sorted by 1st December.

I started bullet journaling two years ago and that has helped me a bit. I do have to rein in the temptation to make lists about lists though.

However, I’ve got to leave in 40 minutes and here I am browsing MN...

Meh. Embrace it I think.

Although if you do want to change (I.e thinking fuck it and arsing around is less pleasurable these days than the stress of sorting stuff early) then I think @Knittink is right you just need to break it into chunks - what’s the first thing I need to do and just plan to do 5 minutes of it. Most of the time you’ll carry on and get it done.

I have had the week off (had to use up days or lose them) and have been at home with DW - it has been ace, no DC in the day, and we have got through shitloads of admin stuff that had been hanging around for months.

I feel the best about it for ages, and would recommend it - for some reason we never got this stuff done in the evenings etc, especially winter.

Tbh I've often wondered about ADHD. Particularly as I have recently been advised by and Ed psych that I have a learning difficulty, in that my processing speed is way below where it should be.

lois that link about the monkey was AMAZING! thank you that made my day. I'm procrastinating about job interview prep(hence being on mumsnet) but that link totally grabbed me and I'm enthused to get cracking.
Good luck op, you are in good company. Read the link from Lois.

I am a total procrastinator! I was always a good student when in school and got good grades etc, but give me a big assignment to do and I would leave it until the night before and then stay up all night to do it! Then I would think ‘I could have done better if I’d done it earlier’ but I would still leave it til the last minute next time!

I find that even when I’m organised and buy birthday presents and cards I often still never get round to sending or giving them so the recipients either don’t get them or get them late! Even though I might have bought them with weeks to spare! What’s that all about?!

I am exactly the same

Procrastination is my middle name. I leave everything until the last minute

I was doing some study last year and just couldn’t make myself focus until the deadline was looming

My supervisor was having kittens and kept nagging and nagging me.

I actually find I work much better when I have a tight deadline. I’m much more focussed and whizz through

I never missed a deadline so I got really annoyed with his constant nagging.

Oh yes I met 3 friends last night for a glass of wine and received Christmas presents from all 3 of them for my children. Have I bought any of their kids Christmas gifts yet? Nope! I shall most likely be driving round to each of their houses after my own boys are asleep on Christmas Eve and delivering (before coming home to a marathon gift wrapping session for gifts which will be torn open 3 or 4 hours later as usual!!).

I'm incurable... I've made my peace with that so it doesn't stress me out half as much as it used to!

That link is hilarious. I definitely spend too much time in the dark playground, I'm there right now in fact!

I do always eventually get things done but I'm never ahead of the game. I'd like to change it but not sure I can now, although I am now going to read part 2 of the link. Then I'll probably find something else to waste my time on

And it actually really does help! I love gettong things out the way and done now. I'm mnetting guilt free as we speak All Hail the monkey!

I’m in the dark playground too

I came in to work early as I needed to sort out the mess of receipts that is petty cash and wanted a bit of peace and quiet.

Instead I have put up the office Christmas tree, cleaned the staff kitchen, went out and bought some cleaning stuff and some new mugs and tea towels. I’ve rearranged the crap stuck up on my notice board and hoovered my office.

I’ve got as far as getting all the petty cash receipts out, highlighting the dates on them with different colour highlighter pens according to date and created yet another new and improved spreadsheet on excel

I think I might actually have to get on with it now

I belong here.

And yep, I was diagnosed with ADHD earlier this year (mid-forties). I’ve got away with it so long by being able to do quite good work at the last minute. All my life I’ve wondered how good I’d be if I actually got organised and put in the amount of work most people do.

I’m hoping to get ADHD medication in January, and am v excited about the possibilities.

Ps can you tell I have a massive deadline hanging over me, for which I am woefully unprepared?

The Tim Urban Ted talk is just perfect! Thank you for the link! Think I'm a bit in love with him too! 😂 I actually have a recurrent procrastination dream where everybody has completed their whole two years worth of course work ready to be handed in. Everyone but me and it's the deadline day, I've done nothing! I have been a student for over 20 years but I keep having this dream!!

*haven't been a student for 20 years that should read!

The Tim Urban thing made me understand why I was perfectly well organised as a full-time teacher but disorganised with housework and other tasks. It's so much harder to make yourself get on with things efficiently when you are in charge of directing your own schedule and there is no deadline, so no panic monster to scare you into action.

The dark playground thing makes so much sense too. It's horrifying to think how much time I've spent there mostly on MN!

False deadlines... pah ha ha! 🤣
I can organise myself into stages if they are meaningful, i.e. I know that project X will take 5 days so I need to do y by day1, and z by day to, but only if it will seriously screw me up to leave 5 days of project to the evening before and that those stages are meaningful. They will still be cutting it fine though! I need external pressure to thrive. I can not create it internally and arbitarilly and enforce it upon myself.

I did well at school because I was interested and thirsty for knowledge. I did struggle with homework and found that 6am the day it was due in was most efficient at focusing my mind. I screwed up my first GCSE coursework and learned that you can't pròmise the world in your introduction then attempt the whole thing in one weekend, so I did learn to pace major things like that. Learning to teach was interesting... once I got a system that worked for me, the structure of teaching is great for my brain. Lesson planning has a clear deadline and enjoyably creative. Marking was more problematic to inflict on myself. I was great at supply teaching, walking in cold to an unknown audience and spontaneously creating a lesson.

I do wonder if I'm neurodiverse in some way. There is a huge amount of dyslexia, dyspraxia in my family. My attention span is erratic. I enjoyed revising and was motivated to pass exams so could spend 10 hours a day creating attractive and creative revision notes... cleaning a room however... 😖 If I don't have the interest, it is so hard to engage and the simplest, routine, mundane things are hardest.

I thrive on just-in-time. I hate being ahead of myself. If I have planned something ahead, my brain has moved on and I am disconnected from where I was at. I'm better having it fresh.

I'm working on the DC's Christmas list now and have just started Christmas shopping. I enjoy my late night Christmas Eve wrapping sessions. Where's the fun in doing it in October?

Adding to the 'break it into chunks' thing, the other thing you can do is just tell yourself you're going to do the teensy first step of whatever it is you're procrastinating over. Going for that run too daunting? Just tell yourself you'll get into your running gear. Need to do your tax return (ugh!)? Just make yourself log into your account to make sure you know your login etc. Once you've done that first little step, you might as well do a bit of the next step... etc.

This is also me. I can never get anything done I am supposed to do without extrinsic motivation.

My main extrinsic motivation is not disappointing other people. If I with someone, particularly in a shared task, I can really get stuff done.

Yes I also seem to manage fine when other people are at stake. But do someting for myself? Nope. That Ted talk is great, gutted they aren't on Netflix anymore.

Thanks for your comments, everyone. Yes the Ted talk really did resonate with me. I'm just glad I work otherwise I would be so lazy with the no particular deadline faff.
When I had assignments to hand in, I think my lateness was due to me thinking that if I didn't get a great mark, I could put it down to the rush and submitting it just before the deadline. If I had spent so much time on it and got an average mark, I would be deeply hurt as it would reaffirm my thickness.
Since posting, I have tried to change the way I think and feel slightly in more control. But Christmas is looming and I'm really not feeling it.