How to Cure Your Procrastination Rut!
Monday, September 9, 2019 | practice ideas
Have you ever been on the way to a lesson, club, activity, school, maybe even work, and found yourself thinking, "Oh no. Where did the week go? I haven't actually done/finished/started this project/activity/assignment!!!!"? (Probably not in those exact words, but you get the gist.) Every single person on the planet has probably had that happen to them at some point! Sometimes you get busy, sometimes things happen, and sometimes you fall asleep and wake up and it's been an entire week. Sometimes you just can't bring yourself to work on what you need to be working on - it's human nature and completely understandable. So how do you break out of the rut and make it not feel like a chore?
We've gathered up some easy ideas to help with this dilemma!
- DICE - Yes, dice. Grab some (1, 2, whatever) out of the old copy of Monopoly you have up in a closet. Look at your task and think about different ways you can break it up. If you're playing a song, make some sections and assign a dice roll of 6 to line 6 of your song. If you have to do some homework, you could roll the dice for how many questions you have to answer before you can take a break. There are LIMITLESS opportunities and fun to be had with dice, which brings us to the next idea.....
- There are free apps and websites designed to help you create an interactive spinning wheel. Slap some choices on the wheel, hit spin, and start having fun! Ms. Brittany's favorite practice wheel at the moment includes options like "play line 1", "play measure 8 at 45 bpm with a metronome", and "eat 5 grapes". It's also fun to put the musical alphabet on a wheel and then find the notes on your instrument or play that specific scale/chord/arpeggi. https://wheeldecide.com/is an excellent web-based options!
- Set real and attainable goals. Not a massive goal that will take forever to achieve - something more like "play for 15 minutes today" or "look at 3 vocabulary words". Make a chart or list and keep up with what you're doing and remember that every long mountain climb really actually did begin with a single step. A tiny improvement is better than no improvement at all, and a lot of tiny improvements lead to a big change.
- Go play! Use google or ask a teacher for some educational games. Enjoying learning is half the battle - no one wants to be bored, but most people want to learn new things. Want to start picking up a new language? Duolingo is free and awesome. Want to memorize your guitar fretboard? Search guitar fretboard in any app store and go to town!
