A Confession

Okay, so I have a confession to make.

Kind of a bad one.

I have some really terrible work habits.

It’s funny, because people assume that because I’m a pretty good student I must have pretty good work habits. This could not be farther from the truth. I have awful work habits. I totally creep Wikipedia in order to get a feel for my subject matter. I cram for my exams. I don’t do my readings unless completely necessary. And, in the last 30 minutes before my papers are due, I am usually still writing them.

Why am I telling you this? Well, it’s not so that you will start doing the same. Oh no. Do not follow my example. Research shows that if you cram for exams you will perform more poorly. Wikipedia can be horribly unreliable and is certainly a nonacademic source. Doing your readings is what helps you succeed. And, believe me, writing papers in the final five minutes before they are due is a source of stress that you don’t need!

The reason that I am telling you this is because I had a revelatory experience today, four years into my academic career: that I procrastinate and put off work in order to “save myself the stress of doing it”.

This, my friends, doesn’t work.

But you know what does? Actually starting my papers with enough time to get them done. I’m (sort of) doing that right now, and guess what?

Writing papers can be fun!

This is the second part of my confession. I’m actually enjoying paper writing. In fact, I’m enjoying it so much that I’m having trouble deciding which of my 2 papers to work on right now. (You’ll notice my indecision led me to just take a break and blog for a bit.) As a “break” from writing my first paper, I started researching for my second, and it was so exciting that I kind of want to just abandon the first one and work on the other.

I am honestly amazed at this. I feel like part of me has just always felt that procrastination would relieve me of stress, and that writing papers would be so intense if I started too soon. However, it seems like just buckling down and doing the work (instead of complaining about it) is making me feel so much better.

There are also a couple of other things that I think are making me feeling good about this:

1. I have set aside a good chunk of uninterrupted time and uncluttered space to allow me to really get absorbed in what I’m doing.

2. I picked topics that I really like and am interested in.

3. My roommate made some chickpea curry and gave me some as a study snack.

I am just amazed that paper writing can be so fun, and I wanted to share that feeling with you. Academic work doesn’t always have to be boring, intense, and/or intimidating, it seems!

Okay! Now that I’ve let that out I’m going to get back to work. :)

Kate