THE CRASTINATION PROFESSIONAL

(earnest & scientifically misinformed)

[thecrastinationprofessional-blog]

redefining productivity (12/09/12)

Instead of answering these questions, I buried my head into my laptop, devouring, for the very first time, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead—two high caliber shows, in my humble opinion. The resulting gap in productivity was disappointing, but meth and zombies tend to be addicting, so I overlooked it. At one point, I even questioned if I was really being that unproductive. After all, productivity is relative to some set of goals; maybe I shouldn’t buy into the notion that television is a pollutant of the psyche, period. Forever and ever, amen. I get to set the criteria for what I'll count as productive, and as an aspiring writer, I feel that I have it pretty easy. If I squander too many hours on Netflix, I can always chalk it up to: “Guess I got carried away, studying my craft.” That sounds like an excuse, and maybe half of the time it is, so I’ve really tried to move away from passive absorption of television—of anything at all, really. I turn on closed captioning whenever possible, because it really helps me to understand the strength of the dialogue in isolation. Still, I find myself pondering whether I’ve somehow been derailed.

One powerful countermeasure for me has been to download screenplays of cinematic classics, as well as movies that I personally find compelling. (The overlap isn’t exactly great.) Although dissecting screenwriting is still fun, mostly due to my insanity, I find that I’m better serving my goal of studying the craft. I’m immersed in language alone.

There’s still a time and place for Netflix. Context matters so much when it comes to productivity. Maybe I should give myself a break. After all, I’ve just completed some fairly awesome projects. (Pride tastes awfully foreign, by the way. I'm considering dousing it in Sriracha.) Perhaps I’m recharging and I should enjoy these holidays.

Who knows?

-J

[thecrastinationprofessional-blog]

passion pits (12/02/12)

Over a month ago, I traveled back to my alma mater to do some soul-searching and to water the social part of my mind, which had all but withered away. At first, I felt a bit alien, living at the periphery of academia, lurking at the coffee shop in hopes of bumping into one of my busy friends. Anxiety hounded me wherever I went, and I actually wondered if I’d made a huge mistake in coming back.

Every day since my return, I’ve been taken aback by how damn blissful I feel—until this weekend.

Now I could probably pinpoint a few different reasons for the weekend’s dullness, but that wouldn’t be productive, and it’d be better to dwell on a suspicious pattern that I’ve seen emerging in the creative sphere of my life.

As I said earlier, I’ve been throwing myself into various projects. From the outside, this might appear to be productive work, but this is at least halfway illusory. A certain tedium struck around the time that I finished my first article pitch to Cracked, when suddenly, I felt out of gas. Now I still have plenty of ideas that I’ve yet to mine, so that’s not the problem. You see, despite the flippancy of their articles, the fellas and fellaritas at Cracked take the writing process seriously, and the forums are filled with formidable writers and editors. The actual process of writing an article is lengthy, involving jumping through a lot of editorial hoops. Discovering this daunted me a lot, because who wants to feel like a show dog?

That’s not to criticize their process; I’m just an impatient and petulant little monster. I type up a draft of sci-fi screenplay then direct my energies towards a children’s story. I manage a draft of that, then I’m doing something fresh. I absolutely adore the process of pouring new ideas onto paper, but I despise revision and researching, and I blissfully ignore that there will inevitably be a “business side” of the writing process.

I just don’t want to bury my nose in children’s books, grokking how to tailor a narrative to a specific group of kiddos. The thrill of watching some mental nimbus take form is addicting, so I seek out that thrill whenever possible, to my own detriment. I become a perpetual starter.

The lesson, if there must be one, seems to be that every project is going to involve work that you find unpleasant. I’m struggling to cope with that, even after I’ve unearthed passions that I thought had disappeared.

I have no real solutions to offer to others in similar circumstances, but I have a couple of suggestions, and I’d love to hear others. One suggestion involves a shift of perspective—difficult, because one’s perspective is notoriously inelastic. The trick would be to harness all of that creative energy and haul it over to the otherwise monotonous parts of your projects. Deconstruct that false dichotomy which holds that creativity belongs in the art studio and not the business room. Use that jiggly amalgam of grey and white matter and figure out a way to make the dull parts more exciting and bearable.

The second suggestion is more modest but possibly more practical. No matter how you warp or contort your perspective, you will always enjoy some facets of your work more than others. That’s beyond your control. Yet you can exercise control in how you structure your work. For instance, instead of perpetually starting, it might be better if I begin by working on something unpleasant then reward myself with the bliss of raw writing. Heck, that reward structure could eventually make me excited to do work that I currently dread.

It might not be love, but at least it’s Pavlov.  

Something like that.

-J.

P.S. It’s actually operant conditioning.

[thecrastinationprofessional-blog]

The fabled chalkboard & chalk nub.

[thecrastinationprofessional-blog]

binary promises (11/28/2012)

Maybe I’m naive, but I've never quite bought into the anti-technological craze. 

There are indeed some unpleasant things to be said for our fixation on the digital, but there are great things to be said, too.

Earlier tonight, the miracle of Wi-Fi allowed me to Brawl with one of my best friends, despite the fact that he’s currently situated in Charlotte. We even set up our webcams so that we could laugh, damn each other, and prattle in our unique, slurred lexicon, which has taken a half-decade to perfect.

I hate to pummel a straw man, but the point is that technology isn’t intrinsically evil. In fact, I’d venture to say that it’s fundamentally good, as long as people don’t muck everything up, as they're apt to do. As my favorite fictional father once said, "It's the poor carpenter who blames his shoddy tools for theeee..e.e.e."""

Damn keyboard...

Anyway, hopefully it’s clear that technology, on the whole, enriches lives. Certain digital resources are even designed to counteract the tendency to procrastinate by making goal achievement way more convenient and quantifiable. [Right, procrastination—the belated relevance!] For instance, for people who are voracious for knowledge, there’s Anki, a program that allows you to breezily create flashcards, even incorporating media, if you’re into that. Based on your level of familiarity with the cards, Anki will review specific cards on specific days, using some snazzy science of memory to calculate ideal times for review. Or if you’re athletically challenged, you might want to use FitDay, a website where you can input the foods you’ve eaten and receive an approximate breakdown of the nutritional content. You’ve also got the option of journaling about your mood, tracking your weight, and estimating calories burned from different exercises. Again, this is snazzy stuff, and an account is free.   Way back in July, I tried using both of these tools, at least for the handful of days that I could shake off the summer sleepiness and my perpetual procrastination. Now I know folks who have really benefited from both resources, and I’d encouraged anyone to experiment with them, but I had a really tough time committing. The difference, I think, is based on one’s basic relationship to one’s computer(s).

If you've had the sort of affair with your computer that I've had, you associate it with distraction and easy pleasure. A diet image macros and Rick Astley videos guarantees that I just can’t take my digital promises too seriously—at least not at this juncture in my life.  When I consider computers, there's also a connotation of impermanence. The digital world is a flux of information, and a workout plan drafted in binary just isn't a contract. Using a single finger [any will do, though the thumb poses an extra challenge], I can X out of any website or any program that might potentially behoove me, replacing it before the guilt sets in. While holding my breath, I can permanently decimate documents that detail my plans and projects. Just imagine the havoc a procrastinating David Blaine could wreak. The only real work that I can do on my computer these days is writing. For to-do lists, reminders, and other miscellany, I've got a miniature chalkboard hanging by my bedroom door. Erasing it is a hassle, and I haven't found out how to perma-delete items from my trashcan, so that's another dead end.  When it comes to commitments, I guess tangibility is important to me, and I hope you’re feeling what I’m saying. :)

-J

[thecrastinationprofessional-blog]

whys and wherefores (11/26/2012)

My entire life, I’ve been prone to procrastination.

…

In a decade of playing, I’ve only turned three or four into real songs. And I’m being real generous about my definition of “real.” The gist of all of this is that I’m basically a pro at this 'crastination business. (Oh, now I get it.) And if you’ll excuse a little further bragging, I’m happy (honestly) to say that, lately, my overall productivity is improving, now moving at a snail’s pace.  Reaching this point hasn’t been easy for me, but I’ve learned a lot along the way, and I think that my experiences could be illuminating for others, as well. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t fancy myself a sage, doling out surefire advice. What works for me might not work for you. It might not work for anyone else on this procrastinating planet, although that seems a tad improbable. My aim here is to provide personal anecdotes and probings of my own psyche. Advice is hollow and unconvincing without experience, so I’ll try to make my stories so visceral that reading them will be like living them. My hope is that watching me unravel my own issues with motivation will help somebody somewhere do something. And even though I won't get in the last word on the subject, I don’t mind contributing a syllable or two to the ongoing dialogue on procrastination.   To me, that seems honorable enough. Plus, on the selfish end, blogging will help me with my writing, which always needs a good honing. 

Oddly enough, this blog is something that I’ve been meaning to create for a long while, and now I'm doing it. For some reason, deadlines have always been the biggest motivator for me, and now I reckon I’ve got a very literal one, if my Mayan friends have been misinterpreted correctly. Here’s to the end--and probably the beginning, too. I hope you'll come along. -J. 

*Honestly, I’ve got four ancient phones still waiting to be exploited for musical ideas.