Page 119 - A Mind For Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science

accomplishing his goal in his own way. On the morning he made world history,

he got up, ate his usual breakfast, did his required hospital rounds, and then
caught a bus to the track.
It’s nice to know that there are positive mental tricks you can use to your
advantage. They make up for some of the negative tricks you can play that either
don’t work or make things more difficult for you, like telling yourself that you
can polish off your homework just before it’s due.

It’s normal to sit down with a few negative feelings about beginning
your work. It’s how you handle those feelings that matters. Researchers have
found that the difference between slow and fast starters is that the
nonprocrastinating fast starters put their negative thinking aside, saying things to
themselves like, “Quit wasting time and just get on with it. Once you get it
going, you’ll feel better about it.” 5

A POSITIVE APPROACH TO PROCRASTINATION

“I tell my students they can procrastinate as long as they follow three rules:
1. No going onto the computer during their procrastination time. It’s just too engrossing.

2. Before procrastinating, identify the easiest homework problem. (No solving is
necessary at this point.)

3. Copy the equation or equations that are needed to solve the problem onto a small
piece of paper and carry the paper around until they are ready to quit procrastinating
and get back to work.
“I have found this approach to be helpful because it allows the problem to linger in
diffuse mode—students are working on it even while they are procrastinating.”
—Elizabeth Ploughman, Lecturer of Physics, Camosun College, Victoria, British
Columbia

Self-Experimentation: The Key to a Better You

Dr. Seth Roberts is a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of
California, Berkeley. While learning to perform experiments as a graduate

student, he began to experiment on himself. Roberts’s first self-experiment
involved his acne. A dermatologist had prescribed tetracycline, so Roberts