A City Tech OpenLab Course Site

Category: Unit 1.5: Difficulty Paper – “Later” (Page 4 of 20)

Revised homework 9/28 Part 1. Reread plan

After rereading “Later” by James Surowiecki nothing changed at all I still found majority of the texting boring and irritating. It included a lot of research that is only vouches for the perspective of a watcher but i don’t feel like it really included the thoughts of a procrastinator which defeats the purpose of explaining the possible reasons procrastination happens.The paper seemed like it was trying to say people who procrastinate are weak A specific part that didn’t really make sense to me was towards the end of the text when it mentions the opinion of who is said to be “General George Mclellan,who led the army of Potomac during the early years of the civil war”. It shouldn’t be accurate to use the opinion of an Army general considering they have basically formed their lives around making tough decisions,they are molded in a strict lifestyle vs other people who truly have free will vs what they are forced to live their lives by. apparently Mclellan thinks that , “Lack of Confidence,sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success,often leads to procrastination are self handicappers:rather than risk failure,they prefer to create conditions that make success impossible, a reflex that of course creates a vicious cycle” . This is a perfect example of how he is trying to imply that people are making procrastination seem like a weakness trait saying they’re making up excuses as to why they’re not successful and its just plain insensitive and Judge mental. Further more in the text its also mentioned that Mclellan stated, ” In that sense, the first step to dealing with procrastination isn’t admitting that you have a problem .It’s admitting that your “you’s” have a problem” This seems like more of a hot take and judgement of people who usually go through procrastination.Ultimately my point still stands. Why is the General so persistent in saying its a self inflicted issue and that’s all there is to it when that isn’t necessarily true. Procrastination is seen so negatively but personally i feel differently about that. I use procrastination as a form of work motivation.Waiting until the last few moments forces the creativity out of you.In my opinion,feel like everybody should just do what works best for them instead of belittling others for what works for them.

The reread plan ,The plan that I’ve made for rereading Later is to compare the notes and annotations i have made from the first time i read it to the second time and see if i notice anything new that might different from the initial opinion i had. Considering i found it boring i think it would be better for me to just read it in sections and take a couple minutes apart to analyze what i read for 5 minutes per section to give my mind and eyes a break instead of draining myself to read the text.Timing myself with 5 minutes per section i can stop myself from procrastinating and taking longer than 5. I can also ask myself questions and try to find the answers throughout the text to see if i can answer them myself.

After rereading Later by

Re-reading “Later’

After reviewing ‘later” I didn’t feel or view anything differently. I still thought it was long boring and took a while for me to understand the whole idea. I can say that it helped me understand the definitions of words that was used after discussion, and also, I had a bit more understanding of when procrastination was being spoken about. I’ve seen where it stated about deadlines and due dates and how we are easily laid back and make those dates catch us then we try to rush to pick up on last minute to try meeting the time. I could definitely relate to that when it comes on to procrastinating. The article helped me to understand the seriousness of procrastination and the setback it may cause.

Homework 9/28

After rereading “Later” by James Surowiecki, by following my rereading plan, I found that my feelings from before are the same. The only thing that changed was that I now knew the meaning of a lot of words that had me stumped before. His examples and the way he included certain words, made the paragraph come together. In the article he said, “According to Piers steel, a business professor at the University of Calgary, the percentage of people who admitted to difficulties with procrastination quadrupled between 1978 and 2002. In that light, it’s impossible to see procrastination as the quintessential problem.” The first time I read this article, I had no idea what the word quintessential meant which made me feel very confused about what the author was trying to say in this paragraph. Now that I am re reading the article and knowing that quintessential means something that is the most common, I now understand that the author is simply trying to say that procrastination is a very common modern problem. Another example is when he mentioned how theorist Thomas Schelling proposed that we play an internal game called “the divided self.” In the article it says, “Schelling proposes that we think of our selves not as unified selves but as different beings, jostling, contending, and bargaining for control.” When I first read this part, I had a really hard time trying to understand what this paragraph, and more specifically, this sentence was trying to tell me as a reader. I was confused on what “jostling” and “contending” meant which had stopped me from fully understanding the message. I now know that what Schelling was trying to say was that we have different beings inside of us that are fighting for control, and half tends to be the person that wants to procrastinate, while the other is the one that wants to do what we need to do. Knowing the meaning of words helps me a lot when trying to understand an article.

« Older posts Newer posts »