First of all, I suggest removing the word procrastinate from your vocabulary because it’s neoliberal. You are not a robot that must be at peak productivity at all times. You are a complicated, profound human being with a soul, not a machine. We aren’t looking to fix you but to understand you.
Here’s what I suggest. Make a list of tasks that you are avoiding. What do they have in common? Is it a particular kind of thing that triggers your rejection? I have found, for example, that the emails I don’t answer the longest are those I really do want to answer. Things I delay are the ones I’d enjoy the most. This is a wrinkle in my personal psyche that might be completely alien to you. I have no idea what puts you in the rejection mode but you do. What are you gaining by avoiding these tasks? What image of yourself does this practice keep in place? Who is this person who “procrastinates”? What would you have to give up if you stopped being that person?
Yesterday at the conference I didn’t participate in the discussion or make any comments during the entire first session. I felt small an unimportant, a person that nobody wanted to hear from. I had to spend 10 minutes in the bathroom putting on my competent persona. It was an actual effort to remember that I’m brilliant, I’m great, and I was invited because people wanted to hear from me. I was successful and talked up a storm at the rest of the sessions. But if I hadn’t been successful, it would have been fine, too. It’s OK to fail. We need to get out of the cycle of the neoliberal guilt and self-blame.
I have a friend who’s also in academia. He was torturing himself because he didn’t publish much. I told him, “Dude, you are the most effective advocate for your program. You are seriously good at this shit. So you are not into research, big whoop. Look at how much you have done to defend the program from administration’s depredations. Thanks to you, several people have contracts. You love doing this, and you are achieving incredible results. Why are you so down on yourself?”
The guy thought he was a loser when he was one of the winningest winners I know. It’s ok to tell yourself, “I don’t like this shit and I’m not good at it but I’m good at this other shit, so I’ll do it.” I have had to accept that I’m deeply unsociable and have no circle of acquaintance after 16 years in academia. Everybody asks, “do you know this scholar? Have you met that one?” And no, I don’t know anybody and met no one. But I’m massively well-read because the time I didn’t spend socializing I spent reading. Years of feeling like garbage until I finally realized it’s OK to be how I am. And it’s OK not to.
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