I have been on fellowship for the ’08-9 academic year. Aside from various revisions and completing other projects, I have two major tasks during this time: getting a job and finishing my dissertation.
The completion of task number one leaves me with a single major task for the current semester. Unfortunately, I have been clinically diagnosed as a procrastinator per the DSM-IV* definition of the term under the “Work Disorders” heading:
The problem, my doctor tells me, is that I don’t have enough work to do. While this seems counter-intuitive, I have found that my most productive periods have been when I am extremely busy with other things. I need to become a structured procrastinator, which is defined as “shaping the structure of the tasks one has to do in a way that exploits this fact.” An illustration may be helpful:
The key idea is that procrastinating does not mean doing absolutely nothing. Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
Thus, while some may see starting a blog in the midst of dissertation writing to be counterproductive, I am actually trying to use my wasted time more wisely. And if the blog becomes a chore, I may find myself working on my dissertation to avoid it!
*For those who cannot find this disorder in the DSM-IV, you probably checked the book when you should have checked your gut.
Memoirs of a SLACer 