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Hello all, some of you may remember me, most of you probably not though anyway its been a while since ive been here. Procrastination is my biggest problem in school and in life in general. Any suggestions for any products (LSC or otherwise) that deal with procrastination.

Secondly my GPA in college is pretty bad im midway through the 1st semester of my junior year and im realizing how close it is to being in the real world etc. My GPA is below 3.0, and i really need to raise my grades in the next year and a half. I know it sounds like im grade conscious but i havent been obsessed with grades until now and realizing how important they are. I am a history major. Im also realzing how little there is to do with that major, i wish i was a math major or something but im horrible at math and science.

Ok, im sorry for such a long post but i really need feedback from everyone. Besides help on procrastination. I basically need techniques tips, acceelerated learning resources etc. in order to: Effectively manage time, note take, reading better, memory, concentration and focus (while,reading textbooks, studying and in class) studying tips, improve quality of written work (history essays). Anything history learning specific, and anything college learning in general. Websites books products whatever.

I have a lot of spending money, and i seriously want to do an overhaul revamp. Im already thinking ahead to my winter break 6 weeks long, and finding out what textbooks im going to need and getting an early start.

Again sorry for the long post. (Yes Ive used the search function and read over many posts) Any and all tips suggestions etc would be appreciated. I like LSC and have some of their products but i also like to get non LSC stuff, as each compnay/product has their own style flavor feel etc. Thanks for your time.

[This message has been edited by tk421 (edited October 12, 2004).]

Whether you use techniques, tapes, or whatever or not ... it's going to boil down to you sitting in front of those books and in front of that keyboard every day and doing what needs to get done.

What you need to do, I think, is to get yourself to do a little bit more than you're currently doing every day. You just got to sit down and do it.

By engaging techniques and what not, it looks to me as if you're simply trying to avoid just sitting down and doing the work. I know that's how I operated when I asked similar questions while in college.

Doing the work can seem like a daunting task, and it can be painful. But you can do it. And, ultimately, the feeling of reward you get from facing your fear, facing your pain, and overcoming the uncertainty is really awesome. You not only overcome darkness, but you accomplish and are rewarded. So, it's both avoiding a pit of lethargy and pain and gaining victory.

Do not underestimate the power of just simply doing work the old fashion way. Don't downplay the ability of your brain as is. My judgment of your situation is that you may not have experienced the full blown power of just doing your work every day like you should.

I just got out of a terribly grueling curriculum. I procrastinated. I looked for quick fixes. The painful truth of the matter is that I just had to bite the bullet and do some solid, good, old fashioned work and keep at it even in bad times.

During my last class, my hard drive crashed. I used a recovery program and got a lot of my work back, but major pieces were missing. I was already stressing. There was no way out. It was either put my nose to the grindstone or fail, so I simply got in there and went at it.

I ended up succeeding, doing much better than I thought I would. It wasn't from any techniques. It was just from me and good old hard work.

Dedicate yourself. I know it is hard. Strangely, it can be the hardest thing in the world to just sit your butt down and make yourself work. And it sucks that in the short-term it doesn't feel as rewarding as it should. It doesn't feel like a major accomplishment, but it is.

Just getting yourself to simply get in the habit of working hard while hard work is required of you is one of the greatest accomplishments you can make in life. You have the strength. You can do it.

Simply working will help turn your grade around. Study, write, work. You don't need mnemonics or special techniques. All you need is yourself. You are enough to do it.

Work hard, and good luck.

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited October 12, 2004).]

My advise is going to sound harsh because it is blunt and to the point.

Quit looking for quick fixes and start applying what you know.

You're not using your PhotoReading skills.

From the art of PhotoReading as it applies to studying (as in accelerated learning)

1.] Working blocks of time. 20 minute blocks are optimal. 5 minute break after the first block and then a longer break after the second (not longer than 15 minutes) after the 3rd 20 minute block break for a reasonable period (so that what you learned in the last hour can incubate so 20 minutes or overnight is appropriate). Be sure to change subjects after an hour.

2.] have a purpose for that twenty minutes.

3.] Review

Procatination.
Avoid overpreparing, looking for quick fixes or waiting until the time is right.

Set a timer for 6 minutes and make a start. Work with what you have. When you reached the point that you need more go and get it.

If you habitually say you need to tidy up the work area before you can start then spend 4 hours tidying up and never make a start chunk it down. You've made the studying look like more work than it is. In this case it becomes important to start somewhere other than at the beginning. Like with writing essays people start with the introduction and then discover that the main body is different. Well what you should have been taught is that you must start an essay in the middle. Write the conclusion and then write the introduction because now you know what the essay is about.

Ok so the room is a mess start studying anyway. Set a timer for 6 minutes and start on it. Most important is to have a purpose.

You may overlook this in babayada's post but when he set about and did that assignement again his purpose was to get that assignment done and avoid failure. By his reasoning the only way he was guaranteed to fail was by not handing in a completed assignment. With effort a passing grade was possible. Since he had done the bulk work once he knew he had to put in the time again that it wasn't going to get done by some magic elf.

If you are procastinating you need to give yourself a better purpose and target that would meet your purpose.

babayada's purpose was to pass and to pass he needed to complete the assignment.

Looking for quick fixes is only going to leave you in the procastination loop. To find faster solutions you need to be prepared to do what you already know.

Alex

Right on, Alex.

I have a BA in English and was an English tutor while in college.

I appreciate your comments about starting in the middle. Often people think of writing as a linear process, and it is ... just not as some think. The linear process occurs at a much higher level than simply writing through an essay.

Rather, essay writing at a certain level is a cyclic and holographic process, a little bit like painting. When starting a painting, you may start first by making rough sketches. In doing this, you figure out the big picture. You start by making broad, messy lines. I think this is where your comment about starting in the middle is very important.

When you start to write an essay, you may want to start with writing garbage. Don't try to be linear. Free associate. Write paragraphs having to do with your topic, what you know, what you want to talk about.

When I wrote an essay, I would write a rough draft, read it, and scan it for any pertinent points. I would circle sentences and paragraphs and condense them down. I would then write again and again, refining, keeping what I really liked. Evenutally, I would form a five paragraph argumentative essay out of all the stuff. It would just gel, or form over time in a cyclic process.

You just scan for what your topic sentence is going to be, scan for supporting statements, and scan for evidence to support those claims. You'll find the process tends to create the opening and closing paragraphs on its own. It's kinda like watching a little life-form develop before your eyes.

Thinking about it, it is a process much like photoreading. But instead of mostly input, it is a process of input and output. Of course, I can see a very invovled form of photoreading being as much output as input, and in a way it already is.

Writing is also a process on getting clear about your thoughts and forming your thoughts. There is a theory that the thoughts written down in a good paper did *not* exist before the paper was written. Writing is a process as much about *forming* your thoughts as it is about conveying them. Some people don't understand that and find the task of essay writing daunting. They think it has to all already be there in a linear, 5 paragraph argumentative essay form and that writing is just about the dump. No. Writing is an ongoing, interactive, cyclic process in which thoughts are formed and ultimately expressed with a certain amount of elegance in the finished paper.

So, the process of essay writing, for me was:

1) research (of course)

2) generate text, free associate, write about what I wanted

3) scan text, keep statements I liked

4) generate text, refine, and organize (move paragraphs, sentences, etc.) to form something more closely resembling the essay form

5) scan text, keep good stuff, reorganize if necessary

6) generate, text, refine, organize ...

Wash, rinse, repeat. Eventually you'll have a pretty good basic essay. Now edit. Look for spelling errors, run on sentences, and other forms of bad grammar and style.

There are basic skills you use for essay creation, and each one is appropriate at a given time. Usually you'll want to avoid editing while generating, but sometimes something will snag you like a nail catching your pantleg, and you'll have to fix it them and there. Do it. Sometimes it's like, damnit, if I don't fix this now it'll nag at me and I might forget about it later. So, fix it and move on. There's no essay writing police that'll throw you against the wall if you edit before you are "supposed" to. But at the time of generation, you shouldn't edit until you've got a good ream of material out.

If you aren't generating material, then you need to do more research. It helps to get clear on what excites you about a topic. It will come as no surprise that I have found that disagreeing with a topic can be as helpful in writing about it as loving it. Whatever hooks your emotions, use it. It will fuel your efforts and get you more deeply involved with your subject matter. If it is a hate relationship, then, damnit, hate the subject with a passion. A well-informed passion and write a good, well thought out paper about your disagreement with it.

Anyway, that's my schpeel on essay writing. I feel pretty confident about it because I've done lots and my methods have worked for others, too.

Also, what's *really* good for writing on philosophy is using the meta-model on philosophical works. It really helps you come to terms with a philosopher's idiosyncratic language and helps you find out where you're fuzzy and clear about it.

[This message has been edited by babayada (edited October 13, 2004).]

Sorry!I don't have any reply. All I want to do is just to thank babayada for his reply. It's motivating and heartwarming. Glad that I found this topic as I'm facing my exam the week after next. Too bad, I only got my copy of PR few days ago. Guess I'll have to do it the old fashion way. Thanks again.

That doesn't sound lame at all, H. It's very practical.

We procrastinate because we feel that the pain involved in getting things done just isn't worth it, and we get away with whatever we can.

If we can get ourselves to just sit down and start, I mean really start, we often get into it and it isn't a problem.

The real challenge is getting that initial momentum. So, making the task very very simple and small makes it much more appealing, and often we do find joy in work, so we tend to get into it and keep going.

It really is a weird, screwed up game. Heh.

One of the reasons people procastinate is the work seems like too much and time consuming. If you promise yourself to do 5, 7 15 or 20 minutes you must stop at the end. Stand up stretch and then decide whether to give it some more time. If you don't stop you're breaking a promise to yourself.

If you habitually go over the time you've set your mind will become reluctant to even start for 5 minutes and you will feel like you have a doozie of a procastination problem.

Alex

It is all work to get through volumes of study material and complete assignments. It is also very stressful.

Having prepared for many engineering license exams over the years on this last one, which is my last ever I really paid attention to my feelings and what I needed to get through it as easily as possible.

It still was alot of hard work. It sucked. I passed and made it.

From an old football movie I found my motivation which was the Quarterback promising his beat up and bloody team that if they just get the ball across the goal line all the pain will go away.

I can tell you the same. Just finish the work, get the degree, the pain will go away forever and you will reap the rewards. Focus on what you are achieving not the rock in the road.