Quote:
Originally Posted by MoneyAddyct  for me, paper writing is an all-day affair. That is because I am not one of those people who can simply write everything down and then go back and edit it later. Instead, I am the type of person who deliberates over every word and constantly goes back and makes sure my paper is well-organized and makes sense before proceeding further. My question is, how can I stop spending all day writing a paper? I realize that part of the problem is my belief "that I am the type of person who deliberates over every word" rather than simply being the person who "writes and then edits." But I can't seem to shake it. Thanks Steve and others!
Justin |
You already gave yourself the same advice that I would give you. You stated your problem as spending all day writing a paper and you gave the reason why you do this as your constant editing and revision while you are writing the paper instead of making writing and editing a seperate process.
For better or worse though I always did the same thing and my grades never suffered for it.
If you are not going to change this habit then I guess you have to decide for yourself why you don't want to spend all day writing a paper. You say you want to change this habit, but maybe you really like dedicating one day to writing a paper more than breaking it up into pieces over a longer period of time.
Perhaps you are being a perfectionist, you are putting too much pressure on yourself, and the process is painful rather than enjoyable to you. You wouldn't be alone if that were the case, but perhaps you would be served by looking into some information on perfectionism.
I think you have to see why you want to stop making paper writing an all day affair. I bring this up, because possibly it is better than your other options, which would be spacing out the work over several days, putting less effort into your work, or breaking your edit during writing habit.
Anyways, that is pretty much what I see your options as. There was a pretty good thread on this forum on the topic of 'showing up' being a large percentage of success. I do not necessarily think it was the point that Steve was trying to make, but some people, who I will call perfectionists, wrote about how they might be served by using this 'showing up' attitude in certain situations in their life to take the stress off.