Today’s podcast, Bromley discusses the key ideas behind the blog post:The key to goal setting and improvement is breaking it down into little steps that can be accomplished and measured every day.
Student Success Podcast No. 21, Jan. 7, 2015
Are you in the “zone”?Do you thrive when you’re hyper-focused, all else be damned?
Ever gotten so deep into something you missed everything else?
For better or worse, I, too, am an all-in, overly-focused personality. Continue reading
What’s your excuse? I mean, everyone has one, don’t they?Interviewing students for our A+ Club student support service, we’ve heard some really good ones:
“I loaned my book and he never gave it back.”
“My computer doesn’t work.”
“I lost my calculator.”
And the ever popular…
“I hate that teacher.”
When we say, “Oh, well,” to a failure, we are more likely to repeat the mistake. Instead, correct forward rather than excusing backwards. Quite literally, this is “problem solving.”There will always be obstacles and difficulties. Success doesn’t happen by itself. It’s all about learning from problems instead of resigning to them — or worse, using them as an excuse to give up on our goals. Continue reading
Would you take the one marshmallow now or wait for two later?
Don’t let the marshmallow be a distraction!
Procrastination is all about putting off for later something you don’t want to do in exchange for feeling better now.
In the classic Stanford Marshmallow Experiment, Professor Walter Mischel offered young children a sort of opposite problem: feeling stress now by putting off something you want in order to get more of it later.
He gave children a marshmallow and then told them that if they didn’t eat it now, in fifteen minutes they’d get another one. But if they ate the first one, they wouldn’t get another one at all. (Here for How to give the marshmallow test.)
Seems kinda cruel to me, and if I were a kid in the experiment, I’d have eaten the 1st marshmallow then held the researcher for ransom for five more — and now.
The point is, however, that the ability to withhold the impulse for instant gratification is a powerful life skill. Children in the experiment who were able to hold off for two marshmallows were found, ten and twelve years later, to be “significantly more competent” than other adolescents and scored higher on SAT tests.
Great interview on CTV Ottawa news! In this interview Dr. P talks about the destructive and limiting effects of procrastination on lifestyle choices. When procrastination controls you, you are not in control of the things you want to do and be. Dr. Pychyl shows viewers the priorities and responsibilities for his own life, as he discusses the truly “existential” damage of procrastination and the limits it puts on the lives of sufferers. Continue reading
Procrastination: Interview with high school students and Dr. Timothy A. PychylStudent Success Podcast No. 15
Jan. 30, 2014, recorded Jan 28, 2014
Today’s Guest: Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D., and Sean, Sena, and Matthew, high school students
Dr. Pychyl, whom we agree to call Tim now, discusses the personal experiences with and possible solutions for three high school students, Sean, Sena, and Matthew. These students bravely discuss their struggles with workflow problems and strategies they could use to overcome it.
In this interview, Tim shows his deep compassion for students and concern for their success. The students engage his ideas thoughtfully, and we look forward to hearing back from them soon on how they are progressing.
Please see more from Dr. Pychyl at the Resources links below. Continue reading
Real solutions for procrastination from Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, part 2Student Success Podcast No. 14, Jan. 22, 2014, recorded Jan 15, 2014
Today’s Guest: Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D.
Dr. Pychyl shares his incredible knowledge, experience, research, and insight into the nature of procrastination and how to overcome it. Dedicated to bettering people’s lives, he uniquely applies academic concepts in a way we can all understand and appreciate.
This is part 2 of 2 segments we are publishing on the Student Success Podcast. Tim has also published his own version of the interview on his “iProcrastinate” podcast. Continue reading
Real solutions for Procrastination from Dr. Timothy A. Pychyl, part 1Student Success Podcast No. 13, Jan. 15, 2014
Today’s Guest: Timothy A. Pychyl, Ph.D.
Dr. Pychyl shares his incredible knowledge, experience, research, and insight into the nature of procrastination and how to overcome it. Dedicated to bettering people’s lives, he uniquely applies academic concepts in a way we can all understand and appreciate.
This is part 1 of 2 segments we are publishing on the Student Success Podcast. Tim has also published his own version of the interview on his “iProcrastinate” podcast. Continue reading
So if you don’t feel like it now, when will you?Here’s the problem: your mood won’t match your work, and the less work you do, the less your mood will guide you towards doing your work. The only way you’ll get to it now is through Procrastinator’s Panic, which isn’t the best thing.
Research proves that last minute work is less effective, less thorough, and more stressful than work completed on time and with consistent effort. It comes down to control: if you rely on the “cram” or the last-minute surge, you’re letting the work control you, not the other way around. Continue reading
