Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Layers upon layers of procrastination

I've reached the point of exhaustion with my teaching load. Normally teaching is what makes me happy during the semester, but when it makes me this tired, I start feeling avoidant towards all my teaching-related responsibilities.

The funny thing is that my main method of procrastination from my teaching duties has been my comps reading. You know, that work that I'm supposed to be completing so that I can move forward in my program. In the past week and a half I've made real progress in my reading, and all I had to do was turn my PhD program into a tool of procrastination. Seriously: last week, I avoided leaving the house and dove upon every spare moment as an opportunity to read World War I books. (Which is how I ought to have spent my summer.)

Also, I spent a bunch of last week keeping my house very, very clean. But I didn't mark a single midterm.

Apparently, the best way I can get any pressing work done is to start avoiding something else.

1 comment:

Inside the Philosophy Factory said...

I think about my own work as working on "my brain"...

Sometimes I need to use the same sorts of procrastination avoidance techniuques for grading that I use for my academic writing. My favorite is giving myself 30 minutes on the timer...