Urgency is the mother of productivity

Clinic and class was canceled today because of Hurricane Sandy.  It feels great to have all this time and so much less pressure... but the two-sided coin is the story of my life.  Without the crazy pressure that I'm used to, I was so much less productive.  In retrospect it's even more disappointing because in all the hurricane downtime there was so much opportunity to get things done.

Actually I did get things done, but way too little of it was schoolwork.

One of my favorite lines ever deals with procrastination: "My room is never as clean as when I have a writing assignment due."

Ok, I know that this is supposed to be about human nature since it appeared in a psychology article... but darn!! This is me!!

The piece suggested that the best solution to procrastination is to do absolutely nothing.  As an alternative to the task that you're trying to get around, do not let yourself pick up other chores that fool you into thinking you're being productive. Yes, there's value in those chores but not when they're being used as protection from the bigger job at hand.  If you see it as a choice between 1) getting to the dreaded annotated outline for the professor who ends up grading your work when she's high 2) doing nothing.......... you probably won't last very long choosing #2 (after all, your un-productiveness will be staring you in the face) and then you'll get back on track to #1.  But if you give yourself any reason to believe that you're being productive, say organizing your knapsack or baking something for your family, you're going to find fulfillment in that and stay on that course for a while longer.  Sayonara outline (and sayonara sleep at the end of the line when there's no more time to procrastinate).

I procrastinated way too much this Sunday-Monday.  I'm not accustomed to having full days off; even a full Sunday reserved for schoolwork feels like a luxurious amount of time, between all the yomim tovim and dating these past weeks.  My schedule for school this semester leaves me with 12 hour days and then homework when I get home. Three consecutive days off like this is a dream!  Before I knew to take Frankenstorm seriously, I had crafted a great to-do list for Sunday and anticipated that a full Sunday was reasonable time to make some good progress.  But the more likely the next day's school cancellation seemed, the more I inched for new recipes instead of sticking to my schedule. Chicken stir-fry and chocolate cupcakes ensued (let myself fell straight into the trap).

For some reason, today I sensed another cancellation coming for tomorrow, and again my rigor lapsed today... I kept thinking that I'll still have tomorrow to do work (Today I read a few chapters in an infection control book. Definitely a bonus read for me, but coming at the wrong time- that's exactly how a compelling procrastinator works).  Tomorrow I really have no excuse because my paper's deadline is on Wednesday, but at this point I also have an exam on Thursday that I'd have been smarter to budget my time for.  Sigh.  But I hope you like the procrastination lesson ;)  Even if you end up procrastinating like me, you'll be aware of what you're doing and how it's feeding the process.

~And here I am writing a blog post after a 4 month break... coming up with ways to be pseudo-productive instead of staying on target~

Cyber-footprints

Having abandoned my blog for a while and then chancing upon it tonight, I was surprised at how much of my drafts' contents I had forgotten about.  Some memories brought a smile to my eyes at preserved ideas from books long consumed, and other memories made me aghast at how dramatic events of late seem to have pushed other events way back in my sense of time.

The internet never forgets.

Most people view forgetfulness as a curse (like myself, when studying anatomy and physiology, ugh!).  However, forgetfulness also plays a blessed role in overcoming grief and loss that I would be completely dysfunctional without.  With time our vivid memories of longing fade, and we are able to move on and return to happiness.  Forgetfulness is a gift that technology cannot comprehend.  The internet impedes a natural process to our detriment.  When we accidentally come across an old email, or stumble upon the facebook profile of someone with unpleasant associations, this reignites memories that natural evolution would have kept out of the way... and our collective emotional status is worse because of it.

Although having a blog makes it harder to keep past events in the past, I like how it serves as a timekeeper, documenting what was on my mind at different points throughout the year.  Memory and forgetfulness both have their place and I thank Hashem for each.