> Hello, my name is Sosiqui, and I'm a procrastinator. And I can't figure out how to stop.

All of the other ideas are great, Sosi, but doing a schedule and setting goals takes time - something I don't think you have the luxury of right now. What I think you really need right now is panic-mode time management.

My patented three-step process:

1. Write down everything you have to do. All of it. Even the stuff you know you can put off.

2. Take a sheet of paper, and write "A", "B", and "C" at the top of three columns. In the "A" column, put the things that are important, and urgent (ie., they have a definite, pressing time frame). Be ruthless - if it's not of an important nature, and doesn't have to be done very soon, it can be a "B" or a "C". In the "B" column, put the things that have to be done soon, but can wait until the "A" list is finished. In the "C" column, write everything else.

3. Get a timer, or a watch with an alarm. Set it for fifteen minutes. Work on something from your "A" list until the time is up, then STOP! Set it for another ten minutes - take a break doing something you enjoy. The second it sounds again, work for another fifteen minutes. Keep at this until one major, worrisome task is completed.

The beauty of this system is two-fold. First, you don't have to spend a lot of time setting it up. Five to ten minutes, max, and you'll be up and running. It's very easy to see what really *has* to be done, and what can wait. (I've personally had things languish and die on the "C" list. Obviously they weren't important enough to ever move up to "A" or even "B", or they would have been done).

Secondly, you can do *anything* for fifteen minutes. The most unbearable essay, the most mind-numbing thesis, the most unendurable assignment. I once wrote a paper on 19th-century literary criticism fifteen minutes at a time for a day and a half. It was all the time I could stand to work on it at once!

You're in a slump. It happens to all of us. It won't be forever - you'll soon find a vocation you love, and you'll be champing at the bit to work at it. Hang in there.

te "And a paper on glacial till fifteen minutes at a time for an afternoon" ach