Exactly what I do constantly. The worst is when I help a classmate finish the exact same work with no trouble, but then fail to finish my own. Later on when they ask me why I never finished even though I found the work easy, all I can do is shrug like an idiot. It's infuriating.
The only solution I've found is to surround myself with people who are better at self motivation than I am, and asking to work together.
I want to second the external deadlines point. I've dabbled in game design since I was a teenager, but I had never finished a project. One day I entered a game jam on a whim, and with that deadline looming, I was motivated enough to actually finish something for the first time in my life at the age of 32. I started planning for another project, but with no deadline it hasn't gotten past that stage. If I set my own deadline, it doesn't work because there are no repercussions to missing that deadline.
The job cycle is usually measured in hours to a couple days max, so there is almost no room at all to procrastinate once I take on a job. They'll contact me on, say, Monday morning with something due Wednesday morning. It will take 3 hours to complete. I'll put it off until Tuesday morning and then just bang it out while I'm still buzzing on a caffeine high Tuesday morning. Rinse and repeat.
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u/[deleted] May 30 '17
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