Background: I'm a grad student working on my PhD in a quantitative field. Because of the nature of grad school, I have a lot of unstructured time (~10 hr per week where I really need to present for something) but also a lot of work that needs to be done (homework, research, reading, etc.). I am and always have been a terrible procrastinator, and it's really starting to impact my life in negative ways. For example, I'll binge watch a show on netflix during the day while my husband is at work because I tell myself, "I can do all my stuff later." Then I have to spend time doing the work I should have done while he was at work in the evenings and on the weekends when I should be spending time with him. It also causes me a lot of anxiety when I put off completing tasks until the last moment.
Solution: I'm planning on using a Pomodoro technique app to track my time spent on tasks and help me focus. There seem to be a lot of free ones that come with cool little features like basic stats analysis, and there's nothing like a good graph to get a girl like me motivated. :)
Specific Goals:
1) Start treating school like a job. Work 8-5 during the week using the app I choose to keep me on track. 2) Spend minimal time on school on the weekends. I'm thinking 2 hrs per day on Saturday and Sunday max.
Anybody else with lots of unstructured time have a procrastination/distraction problem and want to join me? We can update each other on our progress, encourage one another, and tell each other all the Mustachian ways we're using our reclaimed time! Let's stop wasting our lives, together!
