This is not a good skill to have
 

I am a terrible procrastinator. I mean so bad that I will wait until the night before staying up till 4am to get 3 papers written for classes the next day. The icing on the cake, is that I'm great at it. I've done this once already this semester, and received high marks and praising comments on said papers from the professors. A's all around, "excellent, good point, strong argument, etc". I need to quit this habit but I can't when I'm so frickin good at it. Ugh.

/rant

No I'm not on 30 mg Adderall daily anymore. I'm free-ballin baby.

I work best with a deadline, too.
Here's an idea -- set up a date with a really hot girl the night before your paper is due. Then you'll have an incentive to get it done ahead of time. :haha:

I get an almost sexual feeling of pleasure by delaying something.
When considering whether to put something off I feel physical tension in my abdomen, and the decision not to act feels like a release.

Then I put whatever I've put off in a box in my mind and pretty much manage not to think about it.
Trouble is, the locked box, the locked box in chains, the locked box in chains underwater... Well it seeps.

And after a while it starts to filter into all my other thoughts.
Until I get a gnawing feeling in my stomach. I can actually get butterflies thinking about it, but go through the whole decide, decide, decide - put off process quite a few times.

Eventually it assumes enormous proportions in my mind and the thought of it causes me real distress. I do it - whatever it is - and am able to relax again. But the feeling of relief afterwards is never as intoxicating as the pleasure of putting it off in the first place.

Just say no kids. Don't get started on the same slippery slope as me.

Wow.

Exactly.

Hmmm....I'm a great procrastinator but don't get that feeling. I'm doing it wrong. Something to shoot for tomorrow.

Same here. I also work great under extreme pressure, though I wouldn't describe it as sexual!

Trouble is, I have kids and a husband - and they all have this uncanny ability to NEED something right when I NEED to get the work done.

And if I put something off till the last minute, the chances that one of my other family members needs me to be somewhere or do something for them right at that exact last minute are extraordinarily high, so something's gotta give! Guess who ends up doing the giving? And giving? And giving? UGH!

Therefore, I am trying to break myself of that habit. Doing pretty well lately, at least regarding school work.

I have a powerpoint presentation on a poem due 10/30 and I am about 90% finished with it. The slides themselves are finished, I just have to write what I intend to say on some note cards, but probably don't really need them - they're a crutch because I have horrible stage fright.

I am really, really, really proud of that presentation. I'm in friggin' LOVE with my presentation. ;)

I am also, I suspect, on a bipolar high.

I skipped school today and am cleaning my house.

Wheeeeee!

SG, I LOVE that feeling of relief when you decide to not do something until later. Its like the last day of school or Christmas.

And yes, I HATE the payback...I actually get so anxious that Im tempted to get a prescription for Xanax.

The older you get the harder that sort of thing is to do. Age and pain will force you to change your ways.

Been there , done that.

So, you're a good writer. Great! I think you're making a mistake by connecting the procrastination to it though. Learn to do it without the procrastination, and reduce your stress considerably.

Working under pressure is a good skill to have. But relying on it to produce a good product--it's a crutch.

It possibly killed Douglas Adams.
Although there's the fatalism school of thought that assumes if you burn brightly you don't burn for long.

I don't cope well with the stress of knowing there's something I should have done but haven't, so because of this, I don't procrastinate much at all. Except about the washing I was supposed to do yesterday, but it's not going anywhere, and there's only me home, so who cares right?

When I was at Uni, I used to get started on most of my papers the day i got the question and I'd usually have my first draft done within a week. I liked having most of the hard work done early so I didn't have to worry too much when the due date came in.

Interestingly, I used to get better marks for my exams where an essay was required. I sometimes think I probably should have just handed in my first drafts instead of refining them.

Bullit, I was like that in school, too. I think every paper I ever wrote was done the night before. I'd stagger in all sleep deprived from an all nighter, hand my opus in and get an A. Being a procrastinator doesn't work so well in the rest of my life, though, and its a really bad habit for me. I advise trying to modify the behavior before you get old and set in your evil ways like me. ;)

Not true here, so far. The older I get and the better I get at top quality last-minute jobs, so the more jobs with the same deadline I take on. Ask beest. I thrive on it and nobody outside the family knows/believes that I knocked the whole thing together at the last possible moment at the sametime as jobs B, C and D.

The thrill once the job is done and the praise comes is awesome, but that's followed all-too promptly by the empty feeling of no challenge.....

incidentally, you don't see me here on monday much, because most of my weekly deadlines are Monday 1pm. ;)

This sounds exactly like me in my early 20s. I read the book The War of Art and it completely changed my perspective on procrastination and creativity.

I'll put it on my list of things to read...when do you need it done by?