America is about dreams, and attaining them. Grad school is one tool in this process. It is about making choices that really count day in and day out. Choosing a school is really important. It cant hurt that you are young and the rest of your life lies ahead of you.

Make smart decisions and personally grad school isnt for everyone. But it might be for you. Preparation and Perverance are very important.

Then, before we know it it’s 2am and we have a major paper due in 8 hours and we’re scurrying to the finish line again! Or it’s the weekend before an exam, and it’s like “What? How did this sneak up on me?”

Does this sound like a familiar scenario? Unfortunately for most of us it is . Take heart–even the most organized, productive students sometimes fall prey to the procrastination monkey jumping on our backs. Mere mortals that we are, it seems like we’re constantly in danger of falling into a downward spiral of avoiding things that we know we should be doing.

Sometimes it helps to sidestep the dreaded procrastination monkey if we understand why it’s there in the first place. JohnPlaceOnline lists the top 11 causes and cures of procrastination as being:

• Complicated-task anxiety: Break big, complicated tasks into smaller pieces. Complete a starter task, no matter how small.
• Fear of imperfection: Accept that perfection is
  rarely attainable and seldom necessary. You’re a person, not a robot.
  Use the 80/20 rule whenever appropriate.
• Indecision: Determine your decision-making criteria, then set a deadline for your decision. Ask a friend to hold you accountable.
• Priority confusion: Distinguish obligations from options. What are you really responsible for? List and prioritize tasks.
• Boredom from minutiae: Automate simple repetitive tasks whenever possible.
• Lack of focus: Minimize distractions. Check e-mail and voicemail only twice per day instead of every 5 minutes. Find aquiet room where you can concentrate. Resist the urge to keep taking breaks.
• Poor organizational skills: Clean your work area. Put tools and utensils in their proper place so you can find them when you need them.
• Laziness: Remind yourself of the consequences of procrastination. Resist the urge to be a couch potato. Try to complete several small tasks to provide a feeling of accomplishment. Reward
  yourself.
• Lack of energy: Maintain a regular sleep routine. Eat healthy. Exercise regularly. Do not skip breakfast.
• Early morning lag: Before you stop working each day, make a list of the tasks you want to begin first thing the following morning so you can hit the ground running the next day.
• Post-lunch fatigue: Before leaving for lunch, make a list of the things you plan to do when you get back so you can pick up where you left off. Avoid eating a heavy lunch.

I can say ditto to all those great observations and cures. For myself with writing papers and such the thing that causes me to procrastinate is that I sometimes feel overwhelmed by all steps needed to complete the task–the research, the outline, the first draft, the everything.

I conquer this by just forcing myself to dive in right away–I have the goal of getting the paper done before the due date. It’s just a mental game I play with myself to spur me to action. Really the first step is the hardest, and it’s downhill from there.

What about you guys–What are the things that cause YOU to procrastinate and what do you think the cure is?

Photo: Squirrel monkey

Think about it–when you start your graduate studies you’re basically trying to become a black belt in your field. When you start out, you may totally feel like a white belt (a beginner), and the road ahead seems long and hard, especially if you’ve heard stories of people who tried to get their grad degrees but then dropped out.

But that is why it’s such a worthy endeavor–for any field where it’s a huge accomplishment there will be a good number of people who have tried and failed, but that doesn’t mean that your chances of succeeding are lowered.

Your mindset and your ability to think like a black belt in training can have a significant impact on your ability to do well in graduate school.

Here are Steve’s helpful tips:

Don’t let it bother you that you suck at first.

“When you start out in a brand new field with no experience, you’re going to suck… most likely really suck. If you’re lucky your results will just be bad instead of painfully bad. But screwing up is perfectly OK. That’s supposed to happen. Screwing up is how you learn. Every mistake helps you make new distinctions and increase your skill.”

Commit to mastery.

“Pulling away from the pack in any field is largely a matter of choice. That choice is a commitment to mastery. But very few will make this choice because it requires hard work, resolve, patience, self-discipline, and a long time perspective.”

Stay with it for the long term.

“If you want to succeed in a new field where you lack experience, you should be thinking of at least a 3-5 year commitment. If that scares you away, then save yourself the time you would have spent dabbling, and don’t bother.”

Don’t be discouraged by reports of people who fail.

“You’ll find a small percentage of people who are really committed to mastery, but the rest have virtually no hope of notable success. As you build skill, which normally takes years to achieve competency in any worthwhile field, you move out of the 99% and into the 1%. Dabblers will enter the field, try it for six months, and give up after concluding it’s too hard. A challenging field is good though because it means your long-term investment in skill-building will mean something, like a black belt. It wouldn’t be much of an accomplishment if it was too easy.”

Yeah, it wouldn’t be that big a deal to get your master’s degree if it was easy–remember that! It’s encouraging to remember that every expert started out as a complete novice.

Photo Bruce Lee