Do you break everything down into smaller chores? Do you plan out your work ahead of time? Do you just jump in and do it? Are you always finished early, or do you put it off to the last minute?

What's your work environment? Do you need food, music, clean space, quiet, what? Do you pace? (I pace.) Do you drink too much coffee? And when was the last time you pulled an all-nighter?

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

Answers

Hmmm, up until two weeks ago or so when my laptop died, Retrogression * was* my big project, and the problem with it is that it never ends. I can get all my CD reviews done, but more will come in the mail tomorrow. I can write a good essay, but there is more than needs to be written. Unlike when I did it as a print zine, there is no finished product, which made it extrordinarlily frustrating sometimes as I felt it taking over my life, or constantly felt like it wasn't good enough.

Does Bad Hair Days ever make you feel like that?

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

Large projects? Easy!

First, I make a plan, breaking down exactly what I have to do, and how long it will take, and what order it has to be done in. This plan goes on a yellow legal pad, and is written with a Pilot Hi-Tech V5 pen.

Step 2: I then ignore the plan for a more fun project.
Step 3: Four days before project is due, I look frantically for fabulously organized plan, which has disappeared.
Step 4: How can I get anything done with this messy Desk? Clean desk. Take hours to do so. Go to bed. Can't work tired.
Step5: 48 hours before project is due, decide to regrout bathroom tile. God knows it needs it, and just cant wait another 2 days, even though I have already waited 8 months to start in on it.
Step 6: Frenzied 24 hours actually working on project, including snapping at husband, snapping at dog, and wave hands ineffectually in the air and crying.

Turn in half assed project. Fume about how it could have been so much better if I had more time.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

When I was in college, there was this theory going around that each person is born with the ability to pull a certain number of all- nighters, and when you use them up, that's it.

For my best friend, the number was zero.

My number was high, but I used most of them up in school, and I think I used the last one for a big project in 1993 or so, although I do still pull all-nighters organizing things before big trips, and then sleep on the plane, but that's not the same as trying to operate at Pentium performance 36 hours in a row.

When I have a monster project now, I do as many little chores for it as I can every day, repeating the mantra "This is like building a wall. One brick at a time." Progress comes in fits and starts. For some reason planning doesn't help - the more I plan, the less I do - and neither does telling myself I'll sit at the desk eight hours a day like an accountant. Momentum only comes after everyone else has gone home.

Now, with this dissertation thing, I'm wondering where I can get some more all-nighters. In AD&D you can get more hit points by drinking a magic potion or something. Energy drinks? Smart drugs?

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

Assuming you have ten days to do a big project, it is very important to spend the first three days worrying and playing Solitaire or Minesweeper between brief bursts of "organizational" work, such as labeling file folders for your notes and research. Days three to seven should be dedicated to sheer panic ("My God, I could get fired this time"), coupled with calls to friends seeking reassurance. About noon on day eight, you are ready to start, and you should pull your all-nighter then. Your first draft will be done by noon on day nine: circulate the second draft and go home at four o'clock, telling everyone that you worked all night. Day ten, ideally, will be devoted to second thoughts and frantic re-writes at the direction of someone senior who has no familiarity with the subject matter of the project. Be sure to save fifteen minutes at the end so that you can format the table of authorities, make ten copies and address the envelopes.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

Right now, I'm trying to finish four chapters of a book that I've been writing for O'Rei11y (with two other procrastinators, no less). This is how it has gone so far:

Nov. '98. Get real excited about writing books. Write an outline. Send it to O'Rei11y. Get email back from Tim himself saying that they're really interested. Just about pass out with "geek celebrity" email ecstasy.

Dec. '98. Get an editor. Rework original outline into outlines for 3 separate books. Send in all three. Sign contract for one (thank god). Get a wee advance. Jump up and down with glee.

Jan-Mar. '99 Write first two chapters.

Mar-April '99 Partially write two more chapters. Get really busy at work.

April '99 Begin process of getting divorced. Move to a new house.

May-June '99 Finish one more chapter.

June '99 Find out that my boss is moving research group to California. Start looking for jobs.

July '99 Get a job.

Aug '99 Move halfway across country. Leave one co-author behind in Illinois. Wave goodbye to other co-author as he sets off for California.

Aug-Nov. '99 Start faculty position.

Nov. Get an e-mail from editor wondering about how things are going.

Dec. '99 - Feb. '00 Work on book, but not enough. Get caught up in administrative tasks at work. Survive program leadership crisis relatively unscathed but with lots of new responsibilities.

Feb. 25 Official deadline. Not finished yet. Have not yet seen any material from co-authors, who claim they're working. Get "extension". Start feeling like a college student with overdue homework.

Feb. 26-29. Install Linux on a laptop "so I can work at home". Watch Beverly Hills 90210 reruns when the PCMCIA cards fail to work.

Feb. 29 Clean office at work. Rearrange furniture in office at home.

March 1. Four chapters nearing completion. Post to this forum instead of writing.

March 3-6 (expected) Mad dash to finish.

One word: procrastination.

I went to a seminar on scientific writing this fall. The best tip was: actually write every day whether or not you feel like it. Do not allow yourself to have "writer's block". Bricklayers do not get "bricklayer's block". It's your job. Do it.

So I better go do it now.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

I was lousy at planning projects in college - I was always handing things in that I wrote the night before. I never pulled all nighters because I just wasn't willing to do it. I'd turn in nothing or get an extension somehow before I'd do that.

Somehow work is different for me. I mean, here I am at my desk with all the material in front of me. I might as well do the work. (I don't work well at home.) I vacillate between wasting a lot of time and then getting scared and working hard. Unlike college, deadlines often slip. There are people around who can help me, and if I go tell my boss I can't get this done in time, it's possible to put it off or for someone else to do it. That's a big improvement.

I like to jump into projects, and sometimes do parts of them that way. When I'm intimidated by a project it really does help me to break it down into smaller chores. The tasks I put off are ones where there's some ambiguity or where I have to go ask somebody stuff I'm not sure of. Once I understand it, I can get into it and just do it. The chores I like best are fussy mindless things like reformatting documents.

I need food and water, natural light if possible (I'm lucky to have a window office). I get distracted if people are talking about something interesting but I can shut out boring conversations. I have trouble working where there's music. I don't pace - if I get up, it's to avoid work somehow. I don't drink more caffeine. I'm very lucky to have a job where the work flow is steady and I don't have bad deadlines.

The internet now makes it possible to goof off at my desk, so just being here ready to work is no longer a guarantee I'll get things done. But I do have enough fear of being fired or fucking up or just looking stupid that I can usually motivate myself enough.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

When I started university I realized I was falling into a pattern of behavior akin to Tom's 10 day plan, above. I then realized there was no point in spending 7 days getting started, so I went water skiiing instead. Once I realized that was the way to do things university became one of the best periods of my life. I had so much free time.

It comes down to motivation. I can't get really motivated until it's "do or die."

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2000

One simple rule:

If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would ever get done.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

Anyone else dying to know what Diana thinks?

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

I have a pretty laissez-faire attitude about projects. In college, I used the "10-hour" rule of writing a paper, i.e. "The time to start a five-page paper is 10 hours before it's due." It worked fairly well. By the time I was a senior I knew how to marshall my resources, warm up the coffeepot, stake out my spot at the library, and write like a madman for five hours straight to finish the paper. I don't think I ever revised a single paper that I wrote in college.

These days I'm like, a grownup and stuff, and that style of organization doesn't really work for my job. When I have a big project here, I actually have to plan for it and schedule my time and stuff. It's not as fun or daring, but it seems to work out just the same. I still drink too much coffee, but I don't have to pull all-nighters, and I suppose that's a good thing.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

I think Kristin (above) and I were separated at birth.

I make the excuse that I'm mulling. Conceptualizing. Developing a strategic plan of attack.

Yes, I do have an incredibly high Minesweeper score. This is merely coincidence.

I would prefer to have a clean workspace and quiet (if it's a writing project) and the CD player or a video playing if it's just about anything else. The reality of having two boys who have deadlines and a business with deadlines and a husband who is under the delusion that we're supposed to spend time together means that I've trained myself to work in a disaster zone (affectionately known as "the office") while the quiet I crave is somehow filled with balls dribbling, Luke drumming, Carl sawing something (God knows what and I've learned that it's just better not to know, except that he constantly comes to get me so I can see how very neat the new shiny tools are), the dog barking (and wanting out and then in and then out and then in and then...) and something burning on the stove, which of course, starts the fire alarm.

I thought by insisting that the only thing they could interrupt me for is "profuse bleeding," but somehow this has translated into "if you have a splinter, a headache, a stubbed toe or if you are just plain bored and want to bug the hell out of someone to see them spontaneously combust."

To be quite honest, the projects get done on time and done well because the alternative is to spend the same time cleaning the house or doing the accounting or go visit relatives (shudder).

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2000

Sorry about the blanks. Still a few bugs in the system.

I was going to say that one thing that has helped me a lot is lying to myself about deadlines, especially if it's done sincerely and convincingly. E.g., promising someone else to give them a draft for comment before the ultimate deadline. Whether they comment or not, I then have a draft and time for another round. Or telling myself I need to mail it a day early in case the Post Office screws up (which it never has).

If it's a collaborative project, then I lie to the other people about deadlines. This is easier than lying to myself, at least in the beginning, before they catch on.

Aphorism from someone else's old yearbook: If you're writing a ten- page paper, by the time you get to page five, you're all right. If you're writing a twenty-page paper, by the time you get to page five, you're all right. If you're writing a fifty-page paper ...

-- Anonymous, March 03, 2000