Avoid Procrastination by Reminding Yourself How Draining It Is [Mind Hacks]

Avoid Procrastination by Reminding Yourself How Draining It Is [Mind Hacks]: "

We're all prone to a little procrastination sometimes, and while it may put off stressful things that you'd rather not do, chances are having it gnaw at you in the back of your mind is just as stressful.

Psychology Today explains one of the best ways to just get up and cross that item off your to-do list:

Yesterday, I finally went to the dentist. I was due for a check-up in July, and for the last eight months, I've been moving the reminder card around my office and coming up with new excuses about why I couldn't make an appointment.

Procrastination is itself draining. That reminder card cluttered up my office and cluttered up my brain. Repeatedly thinking 'I should...no, I'll wait...but I really should...but not now...I'll do it later...' etc. just weighs me down. Just do it! Or decide when I'll do it, and then do it when that time comes.

When you've got things hanging over your head, it just makes everything else seem more stressful, including supposed relaxation. And, in cases where the task we're putting off is as quick and easy as a dentist appointment (you know, root canals aside), the stress of procrastination is probably worse than just getting it done. Hit the link to read more. Photo by Christopher.

Two Important Lessons from My Much-Procrastinated Trip to the Dentist | Psychology Today

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You can contact Whitson Gordon, the author of this post, at whitson@lifehacker.com. You can also find him on Twitter, Facebook, and lurking around our #tips page.

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Kickstart Your Creativity By Writing 750 Words a Day

Kickstart Your Creativity By Writing 750 Words a Day: "

If you are a creative person, you may understand the idea of writer’s block in some form or fashion. You don’t have to necessarily be a writer to experience this, in fact software engineers, artists, or anyone that has to create things for a living is susceptible to the horrible affliction of writer’s block.

There are a ton of ideas out their on how to get over this creativity stumbling block, but they all come back to a standard tome.

Work.

Creativity is work no matter which way you slice it. It isn’t always fun and in paraphrasing Merlin Mann, “you don’t need a beret to be creative.” Creativity is a dirty job. It is something that requires passion, long hours, and banging your head against the wall. It requires you to make a ton of mistakes along the path of creating something awesome. Creativity isn’t about being perfect; it’s a about working hard and making things, having ideas, scrapping projects, and getting to a point where something you have made is awesome.

I am about to be a full time Programmer Analyst for an insurance company and have found that in working part time I have a lot to learn. I create crappy code and refactor it until it is something that is decent and then refactor it again until it is readable and somewhat efficient. It takes time and energy to make code that is worth a damn. To get to the spot of creating something that is worthwhile, I had to make a bunch of stuff that kind of sucked.

750 Words

This is where the idea of 750 words a day comes in. I have partaken in writing 750 words a day for the past 90 days and I have to say that it is truly liberating. What this practice does is allow me to make mistakes and write a bunch of crap every day to get ideas out of my head and on to paper without being too critical of myself for 15 minutes.

Writing 750 words a day is all about letting your “stream of consciousness” take the wheel allowing yourself to not think too much about what you are writing. It wakes up the creative “juices” and helps you get ready to work on real project that requires your full attention.

The practice

Writing 750 words a day is not at all my idea. I heard about it a while back in the form of “Morning Pages” which is the idea to write about 3 pages, long hand, every single morning. It is part of Julia Cameron’s, “The Artist’s Way” which can be combined with “The Artist’s Date” which is a weekly “date” with yourself to explore something creative that interests you.

I highly suggest writing your 750 words every morning, but you can write them anytime. There really isn’t a wrong way to do this; just as long as you write 750 words a day no matter what. Also, don’t try to critique anything you write or edit it while you go. In fact, don’t even re-read the crap that you wrote. Just let it come out, whatever it is, and then be done with it until the next day. This helps you to get in the habit of creating something without being critical.

The tools

I can’t say that there is any one tool or set of tools that make you a better “750 word writer”. You can use a junky notebook, a text file, a Word document, or even the 750words.com service. No matter what you use to write with the most important part is to write.

Being the techy that I am as well as being obsessed with stats, I chose the 750words.com service. It’s free to use and keeps track of what you write. It also has monthly challenges that you can sign up for to keep you on the right track. Over the past 90 days I have written a total of 68,567 words. Most of which are total junk I am sure, but what is nice about 750words.com is that it parses your writing and gives you charts and graphs of what emotions your content carries, the “maturity” of your writing, your concerns, and your mindset. It’s a handy way to see what you are writing about and a good way to keep you motivated.

Get to work

Now that you have a decent tool to overcome writer’s block and to spawn creativity it’s time to use it. We can think of a thousand reasons why 750 words a day won’t work for us or will be too hard or is stupid, but the fact still remains that we have to do something to induce creativity. Writing like this everyday is an awesome way to start and no matter what field you are in this practice can benefit you.

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Improve Your Learning and Memory By Switching Font Styles [Learning]

Improve Your Learning and Memory By Switching Font Styles [Learning]: "

Contrary to what we might think, it isn't any easier (or harder) to remember a new fact if it's in BIG BOLD LETTERS. Font styles that are both hard to read and unfamiliar, however, do aid learning and memory retention.

New research studies support the idea that when learning difficult concepts, we'll learn more if forced to go through some mental hurdles, so to speak.

If a piece of information is very easy to process (e.g., in large Arial font), we may be over-confident in how well we've retained that information—and more likely to skim it—, while information that's presented in a more challenging fashion (e.g., small Comic Sans MS font) forces us to read more carefully and think more deeply about the material.

Participants studied a list of words printed in fonts of varying sizes and judged how likely they would be to remember them on a later test. Sure enough, they were most confident that they'd remember the words in large print, rating font size (ease of processing) as more likely to sustain memory even than repeated practice.

They got it exactly backward. On real tests, font size made no difference and practice paid off, the study found.

And so it goes, researchers say, with most study sessions: difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence.

If you have editable documents presenting new material for you to learn, try switching the font style to one that's less familiar to see if this works for you. The researchers also, of course, suggest that applying more effort in other ways will aid learning: making outlines, avoiding study crutches like answer keys, and reworking the material.

Check out the full article for other findings about how we learn. We've also got advice here for taking study-worthy lecture notes, writing things down to learn more effectively, and improving recall by changing where you study. Got a study or learning tip? Share it with us in the comments. Photo remixed from an original by jepoirrier

Come On, I Thought I Knew That! | The New York Times

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Week Sixteen Assignment Descriptions Now Active...Due Dates for Last Two Weeks

Here are the due dates for the last two weeks:

• Week Sixteen, Tuesday, 26 April - Monday, 2 May
  • Due: Monday, 2 May by midnight: Final Draft of Second Research Paper.  Post to your blog.  
  • 2 May, Classes End
• Exam Week
  • Tuesday, 3 May, 2:00-4:30, HIS 112, Test Two/Final Exam.  Turn in a hard copy of your second research paper at the beginning of the exam period.
  • Due Wednesday, 4 May by midnight, penultimate draft of ENG 112's Final Portofolio's reflective cover essay.  Post to your blog.
  • Due: Friday, 6 May at Midnight, Final Portfolio, ENG 112, Reflective Cover Essay posted to your blog.