Procrastination re: the overcoming of dotdotdot

I thought I’d never get to this one… But fiiiiinalllllly

Procrastination:

As presented in the course, seems to be related to a way your brain tries to avoid pain. It associates these boring-as-all-hell learning exercise as, well BORING, and makes you feel the pain…

This is a chemical thing, and habit forming, so you regularly avoid tasks that seem painful and go do something fun like surf the interwebs.

One technique suggested is the Pomodoro method. There’s a little primer here

But here’s a quick summary:

Choose a task to be accomplished.

Set the Pomodoro to 25 minutes (the Pomodoro is the timer)

Work on the task until the Pomodoro rings, then put a check on your sheet of paper

Take a short break (5 minutes is OK)

Every 4 Pomodoros take a longer break

This allows you to ‘know’ that it’s not going to be forever, so you can ‘willpower’ your way into it. And using the dopamine effect of reward eventually this trains yourself to so these little training sessions seem enjoyable. I know for me, there's nothing more cool than watching a 5 min Coursera video, then maybe another, then going and doing something else. rather than sitting in a 3 hour class...

Another way to help overcome procrastination is to try to do repeated small learning staggered over several days. This seems to be suggested as a way to help you solidify your learning over time.

In a way it is combining several techniques. Small focused learning with a reward, then time off to allow diffuse learning to assimilate the ideas into chunks, freeing up your working memory for the next session.

If you include ‘self testing’ via the recall method (possibly discussed later) you are affirming what you know and do not know. And can further focus your study on those areas you do not know.