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Jun. 24th, 2006 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roadrunnertwiceI really hate writing cover letters.
This wasn't an obvious thing, at first, because it's not a visceral hate. I'm not just like, "ARRGH." It's more that I am an absolute genius* at coming up with things to do that are not writing these cover letters. Sometimes this means I'm afraid of something, sometimes it means I hate it; in this case, it means both. About the only thing I can do to keep myself on track is to keep reminding myself: "It's time to finish doing that thing you hate. It's time to finish doing that thing you hate. Go on. Go finish it. It's about time it was off your mind. Go finish it; c'mon, you can do it." For some reason, without actively naming it as something I'd rather not be doing, I'll simply not do it.
Chris Baldwin told me, about procrastination, that you need to disassociate a bit and treat your mind like a young kid; you have to just keep gently guiding it back onto the path you want it on. (It's the useful corollary to the fact that going punitive on yourself just leads to trauma.) Apparently, part of making that trick work is recognizing your obligation to be honest with said small kid about the fact that you're asking him to do something he hates.
_____
* I'm learning Perl this week.**
** So as to modify Markdown to add a sane syntax for describing footnotes in large documents.
This wasn't an obvious thing, at first, because it's not a visceral hate. I'm not just like, "ARRGH." It's more that I am an absolute genius* at coming up with things to do that are not writing these cover letters. Sometimes this means I'm afraid of something, sometimes it means I hate it; in this case, it means both. About the only thing I can do to keep myself on track is to keep reminding myself: "It's time to finish doing that thing you hate. It's time to finish doing that thing you hate. Go on. Go finish it. It's about time it was off your mind. Go finish it; c'mon, you can do it." For some reason, without actively naming it as something I'd rather not be doing, I'll simply not do it.
Chris Baldwin told me, about procrastination, that you need to disassociate a bit and treat your mind like a young kid; you have to just keep gently guiding it back onto the path you want it on. (It's the useful corollary to the fact that going punitive on yourself just leads to trauma.) Apparently, part of making that trick work is recognizing your obligation to be honest with said small kid about the fact that you're asking him to do something he hates.
_____
* I'm learning Perl this week.**
** So as to modify Markdown to add a sane syntax for describing footnotes in large documents.