Part 1 - Taking Accountability

“I can do it later” or “I’ll have time later”
Sage, realistically, you do NOT have time later. You’ll likely forget and then the assignment will be late and half hearted. That assignment is important and part of your grade. IIt is not a choice! Get it done.

“Five more minutes of scrolling”
Sage, five minutes turns into ten and then into fifteen. You scroll way too much and it’s a waste of time. You’ve had WAY too much undeserved break time

Okay, past the venting-esque stuff. Onto what Sage procrastinates over!!

I have homework and I don’t want to work on it
I might have a deadline tomorrow but it feels fake. As if the very concept of a deadline doesn’t exist in my mind.
The task is boring and it just seems as if there’s no point.
It’s really hard and it feels as if it’s a mountain to climb and I’m too lazy.
I don’t want to do it because someone told me to do it and as soon as someone tells me to do it, I lose all motivation.
I’d rather be reading right now
I’d rather be doomscrolling on youtube
I have no idea how to do it and I can’t come up with ideas.
I just want to lay down and cry and do nothing because life is hard and school is getting hard this year because I decided to take two math classes and I get about five homework assignments everyday
I’m tired. Tired of not getting sleep, tired of acting like I'm getting sleep, tired of not knowing, and just tired in general. I have really bad insomnia and I take magnesium every other night but it doesn’t work.
I procrastinated on this weekly by ranting and doing cabin wars challenges for more points to action.
I procrastinate on making birthday cards and gifts
I procrastinate by writing.
I procrastinate by checking scratch comments
(323 words)

Part 2 - Motivation

Make Goals:
I make goals fairly often. Typically I’ll tell myself I need to practice flute for 15 minutes every day and usually I can stick to it, but I’m finding that oftentimes now I’m having trouble sticking to my goals, so today, one of my motivation methods was making goals. I had five pages of homework plus a one-hundred fifty question review assignment and they’re all due Monday. So I made goals of what to get done and by what time do I want it done. You can see these schedules on the Time Management section of this weekly. I decided to be much stricter with my goals so that I would get everything done and have time for cabin wars.

Listen To Music:
Now, I chose this one to challenge myself. Why is this a challenge, you might ask? It’s a challenge because sometimes music makes me lose focus. I’ll start up a song and then an ad will come on, then I’ll get on my device to skip the ad, then I'll see something interesting in the youtube shorts, and then I'll scroll for an hour and wonder where time has gone. OR the song is too loud or too fun and I want to sing along and then I can’t read what the passage says because my mind focuses on the lyrics. However, recently I have found out that lo-fi, piano covers, pomodoro timers, and different sound frequencies help me focus so I used them while writing and doing homework today.

Reward Yourself:
I decided to show myself a little grace and I’m giving myself ten-minute reward periods for each goal I complete. For every goal I complete, I can have ten minutes of youtube scroll time or game time for cookie run kingdom or proseka.

Family Time:
I took breaks to watch a hallmark movie or something with my family. Sometimes my mom would help me with homework. Sometimes it was just us eating lunch or dinner and talking. It felt good to talk and take breaks.
(342 words)

Part 3 - Time Management

I made a schedule for my weekend but then cabin wars changed and I had to edit it so I will give you both schedules.

Original Schedule:
Friday
Wake up - 6:20am
Get Ready for school - 6:22am to 7:00am
Wait for mom and brother to be ready to leave 7:01am to 7:25am
School - 7:40am to 3:00pm
SWC Daily - 3:25pm to 4:00pm
Read - 4:15pm to 6:15pm
Eat dinner and family time - 6:15pm to 7:00pm
Cabin wars (shower somewhere in there) - 7:00pm to 2:30am (mainly prompts, essays, and venting)
Saturday
Sleep - 3:15am to 10:30am (gave myself forty-five minutes to fall asleep because of insomnia)
Get dressed and ready for the day - 10:30am to 10:45am
Weekly - 11:00am to 11:45am
Break - 11:45am to 12:00pm
Critique - 12:00pm to 12:30pm
Lunch/break - 12:30pm to 12:45pm
Word War - 12:45pm to 1:00pm
Break/family time - 1:00pm to 2:00pm
Cabin Wars (prompts, ranting, leader app, thank you notes, etc.) - 2:00pm to 5:00pm
Break - 5:00pm to 5:45pm
Cabin Wars - 5:45 to 6:15pm
Eat dinner/family time - 6:15pm to 6:45pm
SWC/Cabin Wars - 6:45pm to 7:00pm
Family time - 7:00pm to 10:45pm
Sleep 10:45pm to 9:05am
Sunday
Get ready for church - 9:10am to 9:45am
Church - 10:00am to 12:30pm
Lunch - 12:45pm to 1:25pm
Homework - 2:00pm to 5:00pm
Reading - 5:00pm to 6:15pm
Eat dinner and family time - 6:15pm to 8:45pm

────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

New Schedule:
Friday
Wake up - 6:20am
Get Ready for school - 6:22am to 7:00am
Wait for mom and brother to be ready to leave 7:01am to 7:25am
School - 7:40am to 3:00pm
SWC Daily - 3:25pm to 4:00pm
Read - 4:15pm to 6:15pm
Eat dinner and family time - 6:15pm to 10:45pm
Doom scroll/shower/relax - 10:45pm to 12:00pm (midnight)
Saturday
Sleep - 12:45am to 10:30am (gave myself forty-five minutes to fall asleep because of insomnia)
Get dressed and ready for the day - 10:30am to 10:45am
Online Homework - 11:00am to 11:45am
Lunch/family time/break - 11:50am to 12:30pm
Paper assignments - 12:45pm to 2:00pm
SWC Daily - 2:00pm to 4:00pm (I wrote a lot for it)
Break, family time, dinner, and reading - 4:15 to 8:35
Cabin Wars (prompts and cabin wars)/ family time - 8:40pm to 11:00pm
Weekly - 11:00pm to 12:15am
Critique (and prompts) - 12:15am to 1:00am
Cabin Wars (rambling, prompts, etc.) - 1:00am to 2:00am
Sunday
Sleep - 2:45am to 9:00am
Get ready for church - 9:10am to 9:45am
Church - 10:00am to 12:30pm
Lunch - 12:45pm to 1:25pm
Cabin Wars (prompts, thank you notes, leader app, WRITING COMP) - 2:30pm to 6:00pm
Dinner/family time - 6:10pm to 7:45pm
Shower/reading - 8:00pm to 9:30pm
Sleep - 10:15pm to 6:20am
(520 words)

Part 4 - Lock In
I spent two hours locking in on homework, one hour locking in on cleaning, 3 hours to finish a book that I have to read for class, and finally, an hour and a half locking in on my writing comp entry. I had 10 minutes of youtube or media in between each task.
(53 words)

It was a beautiful fall day. The flamboyant leaves were in their prime. The trees were dancing gracefully in the wind. You had just gotten back from your nature walk to sit down and relax in your home. First, you open all of the windows in the living room. Then, you go upstairs to your room to get your blanket, book, and your Lint the Fox plushie. You also grab your laptop just in case because the weather does seem like a good time for continuing your novel.
Once you’ve made it downstairs, rearrange the couch to be nice and cozy, and set down your Lint plushie, your laptop, and your book. You turn on the TV and start up a Christmas hallmark movie. It was so cozy but what was “cozy” without hot chocolate and baking? You make your way to the kitchen and start to make your hot chocolate. While the milk is warming in the microwave, you start making the dough for your pumpkin cookies. Once the milk is done, you take it out of the microwave and pour it into your mug. Then you put whipped cream on top and sprinkle cinnamon. Then you head back to your cookies, scoop them out onto your tray, and put them in the oven. While you wait for those to be done, you go back to the couch and read with the hallmark movie playing in the background, nothing but background noise to your fall inspired rom-com book. Today was the perfect, cozy autumn day.
(256 words)

Part 1: 315 Words
Part 2: 213 Words
Part 3: 411 Words

• i have no idea where to start (me with all my art homework)
  
• my parents told me to do and i’m a petty person so i refuse to do it now
  
• i want to get a bad score on a test to disappoint my parents because i am even pettier than i originally thought
  
• i can’t bring myself to care (okay i actually need to figure out how to overcome this because this is the reason why i never revise for anything and honestly at this point i wish i’d just get a horrendous result on a test to make me care about revising more. and it’s not just topic tests that i can’t bring myself to care enough for; i literally didn’t revise for my physics gcse exam because i couldn’t care enough and just read fanfic for the entire weekend before instead)
  
• i would rather be reading fanfic
  
• i would rather be playing a video game
  
• i’m already doing something irrelevant that i find more interesting and i don’t want to stop doing whatever i’m currently doing
  
• the tasks i’ve procrastinated on have built up to the point where i have far too much to do and instead of doing something i just do nothing
  
• i would much rather lie on my bed and stare at my ceiling and do nothing for the rest of the day
  
• i would much rather lie on my floor and stare out the window and do nothing for the rest of the day
  
• even just thinking about the stuff i need to do makes me feel really tired
  
• the teacher doesn’t tell me exactly what i need to do because it’s a creative subject but i would work much better if i didn’t have the freedom to choose what to do (me also with art)
  
• i would rather be playing piano
  
• i would rather be listening to music
  
• the poster on the wall is starting to droop down but i can’t even fix it because the glue dots my father put on the back of it is pretty much permanently stuck to the wall, and i had put clear tape on parts of the back of the poster to protect it so i would be able to take the glue dots off, but my father put extra ones where i hadn’t put the tape insisting the glue dots would be removable and they aren’t, and i don’t even want to think about it too much because it’s one of my favourite posters. and for some reason this really distracts me
  
• i hate the task i’m procrastinating on
  
• i don’t want to do the task but my parents are making me (me with the external sixth form application)
  
• i actually used to love the task but lately i’ve found no enjoyment out of it
  

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Writing Comp Entry || 1170 words

That summer night, I looked at the night sky for the first time in years. The sky was no longer how I remembered it. The stars weren’t there; the Moon wasn’t there. ‘I’ll never get used to not seeing the Moon’ I thought. But I knew that I would never see it again, because an asteroid hit it, 5 years ago. But let’s be positive: the asteroid was going to hit the Earth. Space agencies from all over the world united and built a spaceship to deflect it, but they accidentally made it crash into the Moon instead.
Overnight, the Moon turned into a ring of lunar debris around the Earth. The lack of sunlight killed the plants. The lack of food killed the animals. Huge meteorites hit the planet every day. Temperatures dropped.
Humanity was almost extinct. And the only thing that lit up the night sky was the ignition of the pieces of what was the only satellite of the Earth.

A few months after the Night (this is how we called the dark period after the catastrophe happened), my family and I found a “city”, a community hidden between the ruins of a modern city that wasn’t modern anymore. Only a few buildings could still be used. The members of the community called it “Willow”, a name that sounded beautiful, natural, but, in my opinion, wasn’t accurate at all.
We helped them rebuild the city and grow plants in laboratories. We’ve been assigned jobs, houses, and we’ve created a wi-fi for our city, from scratch. But 5 years after we joined, I noticed that something felt wrong. Everything was too repetitive, nothing special ever happened. I remembered that, before the Night and the catastrophe, crimes happened almost every day. In Willow, nobody ever stole anything.
There were no prisons. No laws. But nobody ever committed a crime. That made me suspicious.

“Hey, Nia, you aren’t supposed to be there. Come here”
I turned around. My father was there.
“I know, dad, I know that I’m supposed to be at home”
I wasn’t supposed to be there. But what did that mean?
I followed my dad and went to the building we called home, but would never be home. Home, for me, was the house we lived in before the catastrophe, where I could stay up, late at night, and see the stars and the Moon. The little town where I knew everybody. The Earth, the planet that was full of plants, animals and nature.

***

“Nia! Wake up! You can’t sleep today. They have to vaccinate us, remember?”
I had forgotten about that. I was sleepy, but I couldn’t miss the vaccination. There was an unknown disease, and they had to vaccinate us twice a year. “Or… Wait” I thought. Nobody had ever proven that it existed. They had told us about it, but that was all. Nobody had ever died of that disease. They claimed it was because of the vaccine, but… Vaccines were never 100% perfect. No, it had to be something else. And then, I had a crazy idea. A scary hypothesis: what if the vaccine was what kept us from questioning the system? What if it contained something that made us predictable, that, according to the leaders, ensured the security of the community?
I couldn’t ignore the hints: I was having these thoughts the day before the vaccination. When the injection wasn’t effective anymore. When the vaccine was supposed to stop working. It made sense.
It was only a hypothesis, but I had to investigate more. What if that was true? What if they were controlling us, our behavior, even our thoughts? I only had a few minutes to decide on whether to stay and let them control me or leave everything I knew and venture into the hostile planet the Earth had become.
I decided not to leave. My family was there. I couldn’t just leave them alone.

***

I walked into the room. Everything was white and clean. It smelled like sanitizer. Inside, a man with a syringe was standing there. In the corner, there was a table, with lots of bottles that contained a light blue, semi-transparent liquid. The injection.
“Sit here” The man said, pointing at a chair. He was tall and quite intimidating.
I sat on the chair, obedient.
The man took one of the bottles and opened it.
“Is it your first time?” he asked.
“No” I replied.
He walked towards the table, opened a drawer I hadn’t noticed before, and I saw a tablet. He pressed something.
“Oh. I see. You suspect something”
“I…” I panicked.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell them.” he said. “I don’t agree with them. I think that everyone should be free. They shouldn’t be able to control your feelings”
I thought they were controlled too… Well, I was wrong.
“These contain chips” he pointed at the bottles. “I need someone to help me deactivate them” he paused. “If you want, of course”
“I… How can I help?”
He pressed a button on his tablet. “Yours is running out of battery. I’ll say that I’m going to the restroom, and you’ll come with me. They won’t detect you. The detections are based on these chips, and if yours isn’t working, they’ll only detect one person.”
“Alright” I said.
“I think you’re a bit confused… See, I was hoping someone would want to help me do this. If I don’t go to the restroom, they’ll suspect. If you come with me, I’ll be able to open the door, and they won’t suspect anything because they can’t see you”
“Makes sense” I nodded.
“Now. Your chip isn’t working anymore. Come with me”
He walked to the other side of the room and opened a door. I followed him.
“Are you sure that this is going to work?” I asked, quietly.
“Yes. There aren’t any human guards. If you don’t have a chip, the system won’t detect you. The only thing you’ll have to do is enter the control room and unplug the largest device you’ll find there. It’s the database. Once that runs out of battery, all the chips will stop receiving signals. I must go to the restroom now.”
“Alright”
“Good luck” he said. “Take this, and destroy the cable. Sorry, I don’t have anything better” he gave me the syringe he was holding before closing the door of the restroom.
He didn’t even know my name. But he trusted me.

***

I was standing beside the database. My fingers were touching the cables. And, for the first time, I wondered, “What will happen after? Will it be worth it?”
I wasn’t sure, but I did it. I unplugged the cables that connected to the database and the computers. The lights flickered. I stuck the needle to the cable. I injected the liquid. I didn’t even know if that would work. But I hoped that someone would read my message.
With my finger, I left a message on the dust. A word.
“Freedom”

Lyrids- wrote:

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Writing Comp Entry || 1170 words

That summer night, I looked at the night sky for the first time in years. It was no longer how I remembered it. The stars weren’t there; the Moon wasn’t there. ‘I’ll never get used to not seeing the Moon’ I thought. But I knew that I would never see it again, because an asteroid hit it 5 years ago. But let’s be positive: the asteroid was going to hit the Earth. Space agencies from all over the world united and built a spaceship to deflect it, but they accidentally made it crash into the Moon instead.
Overnight, the Moon turned into a ring of lunar debris around the Earth. The lack of sunlight killed the plants. The lack of food killed the animals. Huge meteorites hit the planet every day. Temperatures dropped.
Humanity was almost extinct. And the only thing that lit up the night sky was the ignition of the pieces of what was the only satellite of the Earth.

A few months after the Night (this is what we called the dark period after the catastrophe happened), my family and I found a “city,” a community hidden between the ruins of a modern city that wasn’t modern anymore. Only a few buildings could still be used. The members of the community called it “Willow”, a name that sounded beautiful and natural, but that, in my opinion, wasn’t accurate at all.
We helped them rebuild the city and grow plants in laboratories. We were assigned jobs, houses, and we created a wi-fi for our city, from scratch. But 5 years after we joined, I noticed that something felt wrong. Everything was too repetitive, nothing special ever happened. I remembered that, before the Night and the catastrophe, crimes happened almost every day. In Willow, nobody ever stole anything.
There were no prisons. No laws. But nobody ever committed a crime. That made me suspicious.

“Hey, Nia, you aren’t supposed to be there. Come here.”
I turned around. My father was there.
“I know, dad, I know that I’m supposed to be at home.”
I wasn’t supposed to be there. But what did that mean?
I followed my dad and went to the building we called home, but that would never be home. Home, for me, was the house we had lived in before the catastrophe, where I could stay up late at night and see the stars and the Moon. The little town where I knew everybody. The Earth, the planet that was full of plants, animals and nature.

***

“Nia! Wake up! You can’t sleep today. They have to vaccinate us, remember?”
I had forgotten about that. I was sleepy, but I couldn’t miss the vaccination. There was an unknown disease, and they had to vaccinate us twice a year. ‘Or… Wait.’ I thought. Nobody had ever proven that it existed. They had told us about it, but that was all. Nobody had ever died of that disease. They claimed it was because of the vaccine, but… Vaccines were never 100% perfect. No, it had to be something else. And then, I had a crazy idea. A scary hypothesis: what if the vaccine was what kept us from questioning the system? What if it contained something that made us predictable, that, according to the leaders, ensured the security of the community?
I couldn’t ignore the hints: I was having these thoughts the day before the vaccination. When the injection wasn’t effective anymore. When the vaccine was supposed to stop working. It made sense.
It was only a hypothesis, but I had to investigate more. What if that was true? What if they were controlling us, our behavior, even our thoughts? I only had a few minutes to decide on whether to stay and let them control me or leave everything I knew and venture into the hostile planet the Earth had become.
I decided not to leave. My family was there. I couldn’t just leave them alone.

***

I walked into the room. Everything was white and clean. It smelled like sanitizer. Inside, a man with a syringe was standing there. In the corner, there was a table, with lots of bottles that contained a light blue semi-transparent liquid. The injection.
“Sit here,” the man said, pointing at a chair. He was tall and quite intimidating.
I sat on the chair, obedient.
The man took one of the bottles and opened it.
“Is it your first time?” he asked.
“No,” I replied.
He walked towards the table and opened a drawer I hadn’t noticed before; I saw a tablet. He pressed something.
“Oh. I see. You suspect something.”
“I…” I panicked.
“Don’t worry. I won’t tell them.” he said. “I don’t agree with them. I think that everyone should be free. They shouldn’t be able to control your feelings.”
I had thought they were controlled too… Well, I was wrong.
“These contain chips” he pointed at the bottles. “I need someone to help me deactivate them.” He paused. “If you want, of course.”
“I… How can I help?”
He pressed a button on his tablet. “Yours is running out of battery. I’ll say that I’m going to the restroom, and you’ll come with me. They won’t detect you. The detections are based on these chips, and if yours isn’t working, they’ll only detect one person.”
“Alright,” I said.
“I think you’re a bit confused… See, I was hoping someone would want to help me do this. If I don’t go to the restroom, they’ll suspect. If you come with me, I’ll be able to open the door, and they won’t suspect anything because they can’t see you.”
“Makes sense,” I nodded.
“Now. Your chip isn’t working anymore. Come with me.”
He walked to the other side of the room and opened a door. I followed him.
“Are you sure that this is going to work?” I asked, quietly.
“Yes. There aren’t any human guards. If you don’t have a chip, the system won’t detect you. The only thing you’ll have to do is enter the control room and unplug the largest device you’ll find there. It’s the database. Once that runs out of battery, all the chips will stop receiving signals. I must go to the restroom now.”
“Alright”
“Good luck,” he said. “Take this, and destroy the cable. Sorry, I don’t have anything better.” He gave me the syringe he was holding before closing the door of the restroom.
He didn’t even know my name. But he trusted me.

***

I was standing beside the database. My fingers were touching the cables. And, for the first time, I wondered, “What will happen after? Will it be worth it?”
I wasn’t sure, but I did it. I unplugged the cables that connected to the database and the computers. The lights flickered. I stuck the needle to the cable. I injected the liquid. I didn’t even know if that would work. But I hoped that someone would read my message.
With my finger, I left a message on the dust. A word.
“Freedom.”

part one: taking accountability (314/300 words)
i don’t want to write for swc, draw, or practice my instrument because i’m feeling very lazy today. i’m currently on break and will be for the rest of the week, and this makes me think that i get to do nothing for some reason even though i already did that yesterday. having no homework or “real deadlines” makes me stray away from the list of things i’d told myself that i’d get done, completely ignoring my motive of having a productive time off of school.
i’ve already spent a valuable chunk of my morning doomscrolling in bed, and would love to continue because it’s low effort and doesn’t require much thinking. to do something such as practice my violin would require a lot of work and potentially frustrate me, which isn’t something that i want to feel right now. and although i would love to write or draw, i have very little motivation and don’t feel particularly excited about having to search for inspiration or ideas. another thing that has been hovering on my non-urgent list is folding my laundry, which i’ve been avoiding because it seems like such a tedious task and i’ve been convincing myself i’ve been doing well with just having it haunt me from the corner of my room.
oftentimes, my biggest obstacle in getting a task done for myself is a lack of motivation or ideas. for things like homework, i’m obligated to do them because there are consequences and there is a clear outline of what exactly i have to do - for the tasks that i mentioned above, there’s nothing really anchoring me to having to do them so i tend to push off the responsibility, plus they tend to be very broad subjects. what should i draw? what should i write? and most of the time i don’t want to find the answers to these questions.

part two: motivation (235/200 words)
listen to music: well, i was already listening to music before this but decided to change my playlist to something christmas-y just for a change of pace. it immediately got me feeling very holly jolly and excited for the holidays. in honor of being cozy, I went to make a warm drink, then sat down and was able to fold all of my laundry in about four songs.
exercise: i got up to do some stretching!! usually i do this at the end of the day but it felt kind of good to do it earlier, letting me know that i’ve knocked at least something off my daily to-do list. i’ve also been kind of ignoring this habit the past few days, so it served as a reset of some sorts. i’m not sure how much more willing to do my tasks this made me, but my posture is better and i think that’s a win all in itself. goodbye cabin wars back pain <3
time pressure: like i mentioned in part one, i work better when there’s something to pressure me. and since i currently have no deadlines right now, i’ve decided to make myself some! (hopefully this doesn’t backfire) first, swc ends in a week and i need to write more words to hit my goal. secondly, i need to lock in and do fantasy’s pfps, because again… swc ends in a week.

part three: time management (312/300 words)
eisenhower’s matrix: hey, i actually remember this workshop!! the matrix i did for it was actually the first page in my old sketchbook. i think previously it helped me to organize my thoughts, so i thought i’d try it again. unfortunately, it was not much help this time around and kind of restated all of the concepts i already had rattling around in my brain. it also wasn’t the best due to the fact that all of my tasks were clustered under “do” (although nothing felt quite important enough for this box, i squeezed in some things anyways lol) or “decide”, there was nothing i needed to “delagate”, and i deleted doomscrolling (which was not very revolutionary since it already seemed obvious). although this method might’ve been great for a time when i have a lot of academic requirements mixed in, this instance wasn’t really it. i didn’t really gain any sense of motivation or urgency from it, for me it just happened to be some words on a paper stating kinda obvious things. my point is, it’s not making me get up to actually do anything </3
instead, i’ve set up a little time blocking schedule on things that i want to get done over the next week/during break. it’s focusing on getting me to lower my screentime, for example dedicating my afternoons to getting a page done in my sketchbook and waking up before noon. we’ll have to see how that goes (i can’t exactly describe its effects right now because most of the schedule takes place after this daily ends oops), but i think it will tie me more to being productive and avoiding blocks of time where i lay in bed and do nothing. my only concern is that it’s looking kinda similar to my planner, so i may or may not get the two jumbled together.

part four: lock in (007/000 words)
locked in and finished a fantasy pfp!!

Part 1: I don’t want to do my schoolwork because it’s just…hard. There are so many little barriers and problems that I guess I could deal with but take time and energy and feel impossible, like filling out a specific section of a tricky worksheet or finding a specific image for vocab practice. And doing it means I can’t do other stuff, like…mindlessly scroll on my computer? Not that that’s very fun, but it’s easier than schoolwork. I need to come up with so many ideas and do a bunch of stuff, which is hard when there’s other things I could do. I know what I need to do- schoolwork, focusing on the classes I’m most behind in- and I know why it’s important (not falling behind, grades, blah blah blah), but I just can’t do it. I wish I could, since I feel bad for not and I want to finish the work but it’s super hard. Plus, doing school on a Monday means there will be even more tomorrow, and it will collect and get more and more overwhelming. I try lots of techniques but I always get stuck, tired, and end up scrolling through scratch or another random website. Then at the end of the day I feel guilty, I resolve to try again the next day, and guess what. It doesn’t work. Sometimes I can just lock in and do great and finish ten assignments in a day, but I feel like I have no control over when that does or doesn’t happen. Sometimes I can finish like…one assignment in a day. So. Procrastination is difficult to deal with, and I find it hard to make myself get started and keep working on things. I actually know a good amount of techniques to deal with it already, and I try to use them, but I still am not great at it and procrastinate a lot.
317 words

Part 2: To motivate myself, I tried going for a walk, listening to music, and spending time with my family. Listening to music is something I’ve done before, and it can be helpful or distracting, depending on what music it is and how I listen to it. I’ve used lo-fi studying video things before, which are nice, but this time I tried different music that actually came from a project designed for focus and relaxation on scratch. It didn’t work super well, since the music wasn’t my favorite and I kept checking it and getting distracted by scratch. Also, my earbuds were kind of broken and not working, so it was not very effective. Still, I learned that I need music playing from a source that is super simple to use and basically I just hit the play button and leave it, so there’s no reason for me to get distracted by it, as well as that specific music types work better than others. For taking a walk, I learned that it’s a good way to relax and get in a good mental state before I start work, and that if I don’t do anything to get myself in a good state before I try to do school, it’s often harder and I don’t set myself up for success. Taking a walk doesn’t completely free me of the procrastination demons, but it’s really helpful and allows me to actually feel like I can tackle my schoolwork and make some progress. Spending time with my family is also great. They can motivate me, and make me feel happier and like I can actually do work. Plus, they can also brainstorm with me and allow me to bounce ideas off of them, and talk through tricky problems. I did learn though that I need to do something actually nice that gets me talking through where I’m stuck, so not just sitting aimlessly on the couch together.
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Part 3: Okay, so I tried the Pareto technique and it kind of worked? I made a table in a document and then listed my problems in one column, my causes in another, and their scores on a scale of one to ten in the third column. My problems were things like getting behind in schoolwork and scrolling aimlessly on my computer instead of doing something that makes me happy, caused by low motivation, lots of small obstacles, and mental health. I rated mental health things as the most important issues and generally inertia related things as less important, so the two categories got scores of 21 and 12 respectively. One issue I had with the Pareto technique was that I couldn’t come up with enough problems to group them into more than two common causes, and although there were connections, most of them had slightly differing causes. So that made it a kind of hard to use system. It did help me see that my most important issue to deal with was mental health, followed by inertia and a lack of motivation, but that wasn’t a surprise to me and doesn’t give me much help with dealing with those things. My problem wasn’t recognizing what’s going wrong (I know of a lot of things- procrastination, distraction, anxiety, ect.), but finding ways to deal with them. I can see how the Pareto technique could be helpful, I like some parts of it like assigning importance values to tasks, and I might try it again sometime but it didn’t work great for this situation. Other techniques from the workshop that I want to try more of are the Eisenhower matrix and the Pomodoro technique (although I have tried that one before and it’s hard for me to use effectively but yeah). In summary the technique was helpful, although sorting things into causes was difficult for me and I didn’t get too many new insights.
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Part 4: 1 hour of locking in on schoolwork

I. Reasoning (341/300)
- I get easily distracted
- I don’t have any motivation
- I don’t have any (good) ideas
- I have other priorities
- I scroll on Scratch and get lost down that rabbit hole
- I focus all my energy on other (more important- sometimes) things and overly hone-in on it (my perfectionist energy is amazing)
- Three words: Overthinking, perfectionist, procrastination.
- I see shiny object. I like shiny object. I forget important task. Yay! (I am the equivalent of a magpie)

I juggle between three primary faults when it comes to why I procrastinate. Two of them are the alternates of each other: I either have motivation or the beckoning to write but don’t have any interesting ideas that I would like to explore, or I have many an idea but no motivation to actually sit down and stare at a blank screen. However, I can attribute my largest procrastination failing to distractions. Youtube and Scratch are both insanely addicting, and once I click something, I can’t stop, no matter how boring it is. Even if I have absolutely nothing to do on either website, I can’t find the motivation to log off and get onto a Google Docs. Another large blockade that prevents me from getting my work done is other priorities, such as as homework and extracurriculars. By the time I finish those, I have to sleep or eat or am just plain tired and decide to get distracted again instead of doing anything productive. When I am completing these other priorities, I tend to hyperfocus (especially when it comes to research and/or coloring). My perfectionism likes to double down on things that don’t matter as much or just shouldn’t be a priority, meaning my time management skills are awful. My mannerisms can be summed up into three words: overthinker, perfectionist, procrastinator. In other words— I am a magpie. I have shiny object . I see shiny object (interesting, unimportant thing). I like shiny object (interesting, unimportant thing). I forget shiny object . Repeat. Yay!


II. Combating Procrastination (457/200)

Time pressure - Before working on this weekly, I pretty much procrastinated— sorry, used time pressure— to motivate me and not at all because I got distracted! But in all seriousness, I’ve understood that while it isn’t necessarily healthy or a good use of time (hello horrible time management!), I do work a lot better under pressure. I find that, especially once I find a certain flow or mental state to be in, I zone out and hyperfocus on my current task in an almost muscle-memory-like manner. This is helpful for getting work done quickly and efficiently, but not always completely accurate when it comes to the actual quality of the task.
However, in the increments that I did work on the daily after this were definitely a lot more efficient and I felt like I was getting more work done.
Listening to music - I use this habit a lot. The music I play typically corresponds with my mood or current life, but it’s typically slower paced music, which I find helps get into my work flow better. I’ve found that instrumental, acoustic, or piano versions of music help my focus a lot better in contrast to music that I know well and could potentially get distracted by (but that doesn’t mean I don’t listen to it while working). I’ve found that when I play instrumental similar albums or discography while working, especially writing, it helps me get into that efficient work flow and muscle-memory state. Overall, this definitely helped when combined with the time pressure habit. I wrote the majority of this daily in one day and used both techniques to propel me forward.
Rewarding system - This is a habit I often use subconsciously, not knowing that’s what I’m doing. Due to the fact that I often get sidetracked and distracted by different things while working and writing, this system helps to combat that. I work in increments and then get a snack or allow myself some time to do/complete another task. I typically establish this habit by setting timers which represent each of the tasks I complete. My working periods are longer, usually between 20 and 45 minutes, before allowing myself to a reward for a much short period of time. These rewards varied from watching something, scrolling on Scratch, or having a snack. For this weekly, I allowed myself to push back the task until cabin wars (time pressure) and set up timers or blocked increments to work. Between each period, I watched Inception and scrolled on Scratch. Sometimes, I got carried away during these breaks and gave myself excess time, but overall, it did help me get more work done when I found I had something to look forward to.

III. Time Management (388/300)

I used the Eisenhower’s Matrix method to divide my tasks and determine how I would complete them. Overall, the method helped to make sure I knew what I needed to get done, but I still found myself procrastinating and not working efficiently, getting distracted by other tasks while on my reward breaks that I allowed myself.
For today, I had History, Spanish, and English homework as well as completing the weekly and cabin wars. I labeled the homework as important and the SWC tasks as unimportant. Spanish and English homework, the weekly, and cabin wars were all urgent, and the History homework was not urgent. This left me with Spanish and English to be my first priorities, giving me the option to decide when to do History, and delegating SWC. I started the day by doing Spanish homework but realized that technically, the weekly and cabin wars were more urgent. I timeblocked these and gave myself thirty minutes for each task, starting with Spanish. However, I found myself getting easily distracted on Scratch and SWC during this time. When I had the opportunity to work on SWC, I followed through. I didn’t get much Spanish homework done and didn’t get any English homework. However, once I realized that SWC was more urgent, I put more time and effort into that. I contributed to cabin wars greatly, focusing on what I wanted to write while still trying to convince myself that I was getting Spanish homework done (when I indeed was not.) I soon realized that (aka as I’m writing this) the weekly was due in twenty minutes. I began to speedrun the third section (aka this) and reflected back on what I had already prepared that (this?) morning. Once I hit the word requirements (in like ten more words), I decided to do more Spanish homework. Since the Spanish required some writing, I could add up my words for that to contribute to our final war as well, meaning I would get multiple tasks done at once. I postponed my English and History homework for multiple reasons: I still had multiple days to finish the English and it was pretty easy (but I also just didn’t have the paper…) and I was unsure of how to proceed with the History, as well as when it was due.

She was nowhere to be found.

I ran around the manor calling her name. But she didn't respond. How can she not? Today's the day.

“Heathcliff.”

I froze as her father slowly strode towards me.

“Sir, may I know where is-”
“My daughter is preparing for her marriage.”

I breathed a sigh of relief before he finished his sentence.

“With the Edgar Family.”
“H-Huh!?”
“I cannot let my daughter marry a filth like you. Staining the family heirloom with your filthy fingers. Why did we even save you from the slums? You should've rotted there.”
“B-But I love her! She proposed to me, sir. I swear-”
“SHUT UP!!”

I felt a slap across my face as my face darkened.

“As a matter of fact, she's also the one who requested to marry the Edgar Family heir. Why did you think she wanted to marry a peasant like you?”

He opened the door to the grand hall, and felt my world crumble. She was living her happily ever after, without me.

“You may now kiss the bride.”

“You… YOU!!”

I lunged at her father as he cackled wildly while I attacked him. I didn't care that the butlers were tying me up and threw me off the cliffs. I only vowed to enact revenge against her, against the Edgar Family for taking her away from me, against the world for treating me terribly since the day I was born. For taking away every single joy in my life.