I know what I will have to face, the fear of stress and boredom. This is a journey of a serial procrastinator planning to study and LSAT, Monday to Friday. I tried everything from listening to music while studying, going hard close to deadlines to watching all kinds of motivational videos. I always resort back to my ways of procrastinating. Relapsing again and again. I've had enough.
Day 1
I picked up where I left off. Last time I was on 7sage was in Nov. Work and fear of not perfecting of my studying prevented me from continuing. I studied a good 3 hours today, not bad considering all the stuff I had to do. Voices in my head told me to go back to sleep as I chipped away at the syllabus at 8:30am. They told me to do it later, they told me that it's just too cold in the room right now.
I thought to myself, why don't I take a break and check my email, or look at Facebook. These distractions, which I refer to as screens, are triggers. The pull me to the endless black hole, the Internet. I call it the black hole because once I get sucked in, I can't stop. It is the place I go to escape reality and imagine myself successful, when in reality, I'm at the same job, same house, same city. There is nothing wrong with where I am, but it's not where I want to be. I put my life on hold for many years, but I'm going to reclaim it.
This is my struggle, not with the LSAT, but with myself.
43 comments
Hopefully with practice and enough hanging around here, the LSAT becomes that endless black hole... Before you know it you are sitting there, watching a movie, or being on Facebook and think "can I sneak in just one more game? Just a couple of juicy LR questions? "
Looking forward to the next PT, imagining scoring that 170+, then doing it again on test day, getting out of that same job, same house, same city.
You're doing this for yourself, and you can do it!
Good luck, @tanes25413!
@tanes25413 It seems like your main issue is that you really don't want to study for the LSAT. I feel ya. It can be dull, boring, and I can think of about 20314 things I'd rather do (well, maybe 20313).
Here's what I do:
-Commit to starting at a certain time. You don't have to commit a specific amount of time to study, yet.
-Start at that time.
-When you notice yourself getting bored, or your mind wandering off, stop. Finish whatever video, game, or RC that you're on. Get up, walk away. Walk around the house, go to the backyard, do whatever. As your walking around, commit a few minutes to explaining to yourself whatever you just learned. Then, stop. Use the last 5-10 minutes of your "walk" to relax.
-Come back, and repeat.
-Once it gets to the point where you just can't bring yourself to study, close the lesson, and call it a day.
Do this over and over. Eventually, you'll want to increase the amount of time you put into studying each day. Do so gradually. Don't expect to go from 1 hours of studying/day to 6 hours/day over night.
I'm also a procrastinator. This comic helped me understand and control it better: http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html
Keep these entries going!
Hey @tanes25413 I know you've been busy with Superman... but come back, I enjoyed your daily updates!
Day 12
The feeling is great. For the first time in my life I am sticking to something. The reason I am sticking to it is because I committed to an hour a day. Woke up this morning to nice fresh air and the sound of cars whizzing by; the window was open, and it was nice and sunny outside. The window is directly to the left of my bed and an arms reach away, it was slightly opened. I had to stop the thought of staying under the covers longer, because I knew that I had to get up. I pulled the covers off, and felt the coldness as something cold and invisible was hugging my body. I reached over to my left to close the window, and felt the soreness of my body from the day before, but it was a good type of pain. Now that I started working out, I sleep better, and sometimes feel a bit sore the next day. I walked straight to my desk, sat down, and opened 7sage. I felt the my fingers touch the keyboard more than I do when starting later in the day. It felt good to start out the day with the most challenging task. The LSAT is not the challenging part, but sticking to studying it is. 45 minutes into doing some exercises, I felt a bit frustrated and wanted to procrastinate on some screens. I would say, I almost relapsed back to my old ways. Before mindlessly clicking on YouTube or email, I leaned back, closed my eyes and asked myself "why do you feel like this?" It was because of my feeling from my past, and the hard time I had in school, which I will elaborate on tomorrow. I continued, because my excuse was unreasonable. I suffered hardship as student in my formative years, but that will not dictate my future. I went on, and I am happy to say, I finished my studying for today.
Edit: Regarding when I said "It was because of my feeling from my past, and the hard time I had in school, which I will elaborate on tomorrow." I don't think it's relevant to elaborate. We all go through problems/issues, and I will not let my problems hold me back from achieve my dreams.
@ngir1293288 Hmmm. Interesting.
I'll give it a try when I have my next stress attack. haha.
@hazelverdin194 Autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) is a euphoric experience characterized by a static-like tingling sensation on the skin that typically begins on the scalp and moves down the back of the neck and upper spine, precipitating relaxation. The sole purpose of ASMR is to relax people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response
ASMR videos usually involve one or more of the following things:
• Gentle whispering
• Relaxing hand movements
• Nail tapping/scratching on hard surfaces such as tables
• Brushing sounds
• Etc.
It's like sleep hypnosis in a way. If you focus on the sounds you seriously get tingles, it's weird and inexplicable. I listen to the self-affirmation ones, but there are alot of different kinds.
@tanes25413 One thing that might help you is to take a nap whenever you feel too tired to study during the day. I'm a graduate student. When I'm done with my other obligations for the day (normally around 3pm to 6pm), I don't just jump right into my LSAT prep. I would go home, eat, and take a nap (for 20 mins to 90 mins, depends on how much work I have to do on that day). If I really cannot resist it, I might spend an hour or so on Netflix or Youtube. I will then start my prep and give it my 100%. I'm more efficient that way. Two hours of complete focus is much better than six hours of phoning it in.
I would also advise against watching TVs or playing games after taking a nap. After a short nap, I usually feel fully charged. So don't waste your fresh mind on some brainless shows or games (I don't really play video games. But I'm assuming they are brainless, that's why your brain is forcing you to choose video games instead of much more challenging Logic Games so that it can take a prolonged break:).
But don't beat yourself up if you just don't feel like study at all. In fact, when that happens, just take the whole day off. If you schedule allows it, take the whole week. Hang out with your friends and families, or maybe dogs and cats depends on your social circle:).
A Dose of Harsh Reality:
However, if even after a long break, you still have no motivation or energy to study for the test. You should reevaluate your attitude and ask yourself how much you really want to succeed on the LSAT. Because it's REALLY JUST a standardized test!!! Your potential law degree, your future career as a lawyer or any other professions you choose to pursue after law school are bound to be much more difficult than this. So if you cannot even handle the challenge and the stress of the test, please do yourself a huge favor and quit now.
I might share too much, but I mean well:). The last part is really for myself or whoever needs it. Looking forward to reading about your future days.
Looking forward to reading about your future days @tanes25413 ... Ps Bruce is my favorite 7Sage proctor!
My procrastination and panic monster joined forces today and figured out how to get my computer screen on my TV (from 2002), enabling me to watch from my recliner or on the treadmill... so now its become "fun" to review videos... YAY!
@jy-ping hilarious and useful at the same time. The second part is Spot on! Love the use of funny unique terms and a storyline. Most important take "Nobody builds a house. They just put one brick after another".
And while we are at it,here is another resource that might be of some help. The table she makes to figure out the root cause is ingenious. http://www.vox.com/2016/3/4/11147432/immunity-to-change
@tanes25413 My pleasure, bud. Keep at it. Believe it or not, this test will eventually become "fun." Well...to an extent.
If you want to imagine the future, do so. Use that to your advantage. Imagine where you'll be 5+ years from now if you bust your butt studying for the LSAT and get into a top school.
Day 14
Every morning, I get up, sit at my desk, and work way on studying the LSAT. I found that I am most productive in the morning, so I will take full advantage of that. There are so many things I want to do, but after weighing my priorities, I found studying the LSAT is most important. My life is slowly piecing together, and fitting my studying schedule. I deal with each problem that stands in the way of efficient and consistent studying. First, it was stress caused from lack of exercise; now I exercise daily for about an hour. Next, it was poor time management, so I made sure to prioritize my responsibilities. Then, it was procrastination due to intimidation; the intimidation stemmed from the constant dreaming of scoring high and getting into the best law school. To deal with this, I cut down my studying to 1 hour a day, and learned how to control my thoughts. Every time I imagined the future, I told myself "stop it," and came back to the present. I am the type that rehearses every conversation, and tries plan out/imagine the future exactly they way I want. Problem is, these are things that I can't control. The future is out of my hands. The best I can do is set a goal, and get ready to go with the flow. The next issue i'm going to deal with is sleep. I sleep too late, and wake up too late, so ill try to adjust my sleep cycle and see how that goes.
@tanes25413 Where have you been till now?! I suffer from the same issues. My distractions are different but...Good luck to you my friend ! I am getting back at it as well. It is so exhausting going through the same cycles over and over again but hey giving up is worse. :)
Did i mention our goals are the same as well?! FREAKY.
I'm glad to hear that your studying is going well. Keep it up! :) A lot of people may read this and find it encouraging.
Exercise. It's good for getting the brain up and running!
@nicole thanks. I'm in the middle of the 7sage course, and progressing quicker than I did when I studied under stress. Your encouragement motivates me.
Day 7
Today was great and I worked efficiently for about 1 hour and 20 min in total. I did get distracted spending a lot of time on news websites, and reading on Obama's planned visit to Cuba. Mornings is when I work better, so tomorrow I hope to get straight into the LSAT and not waste time. Like I mentioned before, I am planning to study for at least hour a day for the first week, and then up the hours in the coming weeks. When stressed, I am inefficient, and tackling something like the LSAT is not easy for me. Not being stressed helps me comprehend ideas quicker. But, now that I'm relaxed, my mind is trying to find things to worry about. One thing that I learned is to schedule worry time. For example, if I stress about something work related, or an issue in my life, I try to schedule the issue to 7pm. I tell myself that I will sit there and worry about this problem for 15min. But, if I don't remember to take those 15min, next time the problem creeps into my mind, and I try to reschedule it, my brain will be like "nah man, last time you promised you would think about it at 7pm, you lied." That's why it's important to keep promises to ourselves. Of course, if one just broke up with their significant other, or something big happened, it wouldn't be easy to schedule worry time. Time heals in that instance, and we could try to do what we can to study.
I'll go ahead and assume that means you made your way through some LSAT material, which is cause for celebration!
Ha! If I didn't know better I would think that I wrote that initial post. I can always find a reason not to study. Tonight is a very legit reason, Survivor premiere, duh! Lol I always "have a headache" as well. There will come a time when you will just push through. I'm actually getting fed up with myself. I can't keep putting this off due to procrastination. I've definitely gotten better. There are times when I will just put the books down and shut down, but there are also random times when I just "feel" like studying. It'll all come together.
What is this?
I identify with this thread so much. Hang in there, @tanes25413!
I agree with Nicole Hopkins. You don't have to post them here, but it may help if you define your goals. Thinking long term is good, but in this case (if you still want to become a lawyer), coming up with very simple LSAT goals will probably be beneficial. I could be completely wrong, but I feel that your procrastination stems from something of a perfectionist/self-sabotage impulse.
Take tiny steps just like the experts recommend. Don't think about getting a 180, getting into that dream school, getting that dream job, or even studying in the ideal way. Chill. Try to do something little daily. For instance, "today I'm going to cover 1 lesson" or "today I'm just going to sit down and get my LSAT stuff out as if I'm going to study and we'll see what happens after that." If you do something, anything at all, feel good about it. If you do more, great. If you don't, whatever. Still reward yourself for trying to make the LSAT less scary and stressful. Don't beat yourself up for not studying "perfectly."
For many if they work themselves up into moods where they dislike studying because they're afraid they'll make mistakes and ... making mistakes encourages them to play out various apocalyptic scenarios in their heads. Then, avoiding studying becomes a natural thing. They get stuck. Progress isn't made in any direction.
WHY?
In terms of the LSAT, I don't know what your long-term goals are, but I don't think that sort of attitude is helpful. I suggest that you think critically about why perfection in studying is something you want? How does it even help you?
If you realize that it's not helpful, I think it'll be easier for you to ditch. Simple stupid goals, making mistakes while studying, and being a bit gentle with yourself is probably a more efficient way to go about things. Doing that will also make the LSAT more of a game and less of a chore. This is something you're devoting a lot of time to, so you might as well enjoy it as much as you can.
Why don't we do this: help us help you. What ARE your goals? Can you articulate them? Is it to finish a certain number of curriculum hours per week? A certain number of PT's?
Research apps that block distractions online (Cold Turkey, Freedom, etc).
Take @ioana200.1001's advice and carefully examine your long-term goals. They should bring you some motivation.