Saturday 17 February 2007

The benefits of doing nothing

Admittedly, it's really quite boring for any audience a writer might have, but sometimes, for many and varied reasons, it becomes necessary to disengage briefly from a project and just leave it alone. Regular visitors may have noticed that this is what I'm doing right now. Don't worry, I'll be back again next week.

Please note, though, that doing nothing is only an option for those who have made an early start. I know well (oh, so well) that it is tempting for students to procrastinate until the night before a deadline and then panic. At best, writing under those conditions is uncomfortable. Sometimes we suspect that the lecture or seminar dealing with the topic of our assignment will clear the mists sufficiently for work to begin, so we wait until then. In my experience, this is usually a misguided assumption. We lose valuable thinking and research time while we wait for someone else to come along and solve our problems, and that isn't what university is all about. Of course seminars and lectures are helpful, but there's no getting away from the fact that they are most helpful to those who have also done their own active reading. Especially after the first year of undergraduate study.

The take-home message from this post: get an early start, at least in thinking. It's much more comfortable, gives you a fair chance of sorting out any difficulties you might encounter, grants you extra editing time, and, don't forget, lets you do nothing for a while if you need to.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

...it becomes necessary to disengage briefly from a project and just leave it alone.

I'm experiencing the need to do that right now with my assignments.

...Please note, though, that doing nothing is only an option for those who have made an early start.

Ahhh drat! That's not for me then!

...Get an early start, at least in thinking. It's much more comfortable, gives you a fair chance of sorting out any difficulties you might encounter, grants you extra editing time, and, don't forget, lets you do nothing for a while if you need to.

*Scurries of to write this advice in big letters on wall*

Lynn said...

Ha ha ha. I do love the way in which we, an intelligent species, would often rather suffer for ages by avoiding something instead of tolerating the transient pain of getting it done.

But it does often help if you can step back, even just for an hour. Keeping one's cool seems to be the main thing (still working on that!).

Unknown said...

"Don't put off till tomorrow what you can do today or don't do today what you can put off till tomorrow", is that the question?

I do agree with you Lynn, but I don't know why every interesting and exciting things that never show their faces to me, all happen when I beat the devil and summon some courage to finnaly do some work. At times, I am tempted just to forget about my exam and approach the warm invitation of the supermodel who is flirtively smilimg at me in Starbucks where I am trying to stay awake just for a couple of more hours before I drop dead. Am I fantacising again?? Is this the question then?

Anonymous said...

i always say (although not always materialise) that ideally you should start early on, at least in thinking about the essay doing the literature review and organising thoughts so that you don't rush at the last minute panicking (please note the above is easier said than done!)

Lynn said...

Hi Ehsan, wasn't there a psychologist called Wiseman (appropriate name, no?) who said that the difference between lucky people and unlucky ones was the fact that the lucky ones constantly had their eyes open for opportunity. So maybe the supermodel is always giving you the eye over the skinny soy dandelion gulpaccino, but you only notice it when you are trying to avoid your work! Again, the ironies of life...

Hi Maria. I saw somewhere that people with impulsive personalities are more likely to leave their work to the last minute. I think they are supposed to be more in need of external stimulus than their more organised fellows!

Unknown said...

Hi Lynn,

Why couldn't you leave it "as it were?" From now on everytime I see a model, I feel obliged to go back to work, as it were.

Lynn said...

I knew you'd get the hang of this instrumental conditioning in the end. No offence.

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