Posted by lonelygirl on April 19, 2004, at 16:13:22
At my psychologist appointment on Tuesday (last week), we talked about some of my school problems, namely procrastination. There was a project due about 3 weeks ago that I didn’t do, and it’s worth 15% of the course grade, but even worse, it is the basis for a group project that’s worth 10% of the grade, so it’s a problem for my whole group.
I had told my group that I was going to talk to the professor about it, but I still haven’t. I asked the psychologist for some advice on what to say when I talk to him -- specifically, when he asks (which I’m sure he will) why I didn’t do it. Then we started talking about why I didn’t do it. This somehow led to him getting out this procrastination workbook, and we spent the entire rest of the time going through this CBT stuff.
I don’t even know if the professor is going to accept the paper late, and I’ll be really mad if I spend time on it and he ends up not accepting it. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but I don’t really have a good excuse, so there’s not really any reason he SHOULD accept it. Anyway, the psychologist suggested that I start the paper before I talk to the professor, just so I can tell him that I have made some progress.
The workbook was kind of silly, really. He asked me what is the “first thing” I am procrastinating, and it’s picking a topic for the paper (which is more complicated than it sounds because just picking the topic requires some research). First, we made a cost-benefit table, where I had to think of the advantages and disadvantages of not picking a topic. Then, we made a cost-benefit table of advantages and disadvantages of picking a topic “today.”
Then, we made a “plan” for picking a topic. This sort of became a problem, because I was supposed to write down a time I would start. He asked me when I wanted to start, and I said, “Well, never.” He then rephrased it and said, “When are you going to start?” I said, “Well, probably never.” I’m sure he was getting annoyed at this point (though he is good at acting patient). I eventually got him to tell me what time to start. The appointment was over at 3:00, so he said 3:30. I said that was too early, so he said 4:00, and that’s what I wrote down.
So, at 4:00, I started picking a topic. I spent about 45 minutes on it and came up with something. I have also done a little bit of work on the paper. (I was planning to talk to the professor this morning, but there has been no hot water in the dorm since Saturday, and I was not going to go in this guy’s office not having taking a shower for 2 days!)
Now the only problem is that the psychologist is going to think that his workbook thing worked. I guess it did, in a way, because I did pick a topic. But I didn’t really do it because of the workbook. I know that I really did it because I wanted to make him happy, or because after we spent the whole time talking about picking a stupid topic, he would be disappointed if I ended up not doing it.
Now, I don’t know if I should even tell him this. If I do, then maybe he will think he can just tell me to do stuff I should be doing, and I’ll do it -- problem solved -- but then he will end up telling me to do something that I won’t be able to do, and he will be disappointed in me, and I will feel terrible. And if I tell him, should I also tell him about my concern about telling him? If I do, then I’m worried that he will do the opposite and not want to give me any more advice because he knows that I’m worried about disappointing him. (Um, did anybody follow that?)
Anybody want to give me any advice before I see him tomorrow? Thanks in advance...
poster:lonelygirl
thread:337809
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040307/msgs/337809.html