My newest anti-procrastination plan
Today I finally came up with a new system to help me not only avoid procrastinating my creative vortexes (and similar things), but avoid always working on things that I won't need to finish for a while just so I won't have to work on the ones that are due sooner!
Here's how it works: I already have a list of things to do sorted roughly from what I have the least time to do to what I have the most time to do, and things that I have practically unlimited time to do are also sorted by my willingness to wait until college to finish them. I also now have a scoring system that retroactively went into effect when I started typing this entry: I earn "procrastination points" when I work on creative vortexes, etc., and then get to "buy" procrastination with my procrastination points. Some examples of point values are as follows:
- Making one userpic (either a new one or a PrtSc Land-styled version of an old one) = +1/x procrastination point, where x is how far down the list PSL-styled or new userpics is (so if I make 3 new userpics, I get 3/44 of a procrastination point since new userpics are the 44th item on the list)
- Writing one paragraph of Moya's Space Log = +1/x procrastination point (x functions the same way as before)
- Adding or editing a line of code in a program or an object on a program form = +1/x procrastination point
- Watching 5 minutes of The X-Files, Roswell, Grey's Anatomy, etc. with pathvain_aelien = +1/x procrastination point
- Adding to one of my lists of creative vortexes = +1/10 of the procrastination points I'd get by actually making/doing whatever I wrote down
You get the idea - for everything in my to-do list, I have to define how much I need to do before I get 1/x of a procrastination point, and then keep it consistent. Getting procrastination points faster by doing things at the top of the list should encourage me to do those more, yet allow me to work on other things on my list when I get sick of working on stuff at the top.
Some example costs of procrastinating:
- Every Internet browser page load = -1 point unless I use it to work on something in my to do list. (Things that are actually important, such as checking my banking account online, will actually be put at the top of my to do list when I have to do them, so don't worry about me not getting to do something immediately important just because I don't have enough procrastination points)
- Playing video games = -1 point for every turn. What counts as a "turn" depends on the game; i.e., for some, a turn might end whenever I either beat a level or lose a life, or if I decide to play a Mario Party game or Pac-Man Party it'll be an actual turn, etc.
As you can see, it'll be just as arbitrary, yet consistent, as my earning procrastination points.
Now to see if it'll work! :)
EDIT: While it's been helping me avoid procrastination so far, it seems to be having me do too little procrastination because, now that I think about it, when I work on the first thing on my list, I should probably get more than one procrastination point for it, because that's not even enough to post one LJ comment. So, starting tomorrow (I added this part on the 19th), every instance of 1/x in the scoring is hereby replaced with 10/x. :)
Here's how it works: I already have a list of things to do sorted roughly from what I have the least time to do to what I have the most time to do, and things that I have practically unlimited time to do are also sorted by my willingness to wait until college to finish them. I also now have a scoring system that retroactively went into effect when I started typing this entry: I earn "procrastination points" when I work on creative vortexes, etc., and then get to "buy" procrastination with my procrastination points. Some examples of point values are as follows:
- Making one userpic (either a new one or a PrtSc Land-styled version of an old one) = +1/x procrastination point, where x is how far down the list PSL-styled or new userpics is (so if I make 3 new userpics, I get 3/44 of a procrastination point since new userpics are the 44th item on the list)
- Writing one paragraph of Moya's Space Log = +1/x procrastination point (x functions the same way as before)
- Adding or editing a line of code in a program or an object on a program form = +1/x procrastination point
- Watching 5 minutes of The X-Files, Roswell, Grey's Anatomy, etc. with pathvain_aelien = +1/x procrastination point
- Adding to one of my lists of creative vortexes = +1/10 of the procrastination points I'd get by actually making/doing whatever I wrote down
You get the idea - for everything in my to-do list, I have to define how much I need to do before I get 1/x of a procrastination point, and then keep it consistent. Getting procrastination points faster by doing things at the top of the list should encourage me to do those more, yet allow me to work on other things on my list when I get sick of working on stuff at the top.
Some example costs of procrastinating:
- Every Internet browser page load = -1 point unless I use it to work on something in my to do list. (Things that are actually important, such as checking my banking account online, will actually be put at the top of my to do list when I have to do them, so don't worry about me not getting to do something immediately important just because I don't have enough procrastination points)
- Playing video games = -1 point for every turn. What counts as a "turn" depends on the game; i.e., for some, a turn might end whenever I either beat a level or lose a life, or if I decide to play a Mario Party game or Pac-Man Party it'll be an actual turn, etc.
As you can see, it'll be just as arbitrary, yet consistent, as my earning procrastination points.
Now to see if it'll work! :)
EDIT: While it's been helping me avoid procrastination so far, it seems to be having me do too little procrastination because, now that I think about it, when I work on the first thing on my list, I should probably get more than one procrastination point for it, because that's not even enough to post one LJ comment. So, starting tomorrow (I added this part on the 19th), every instance of 1/x in the scoring is hereby replaced with 10/x. :)