Two-For-One Deal: Killing Boredom with Procrastination

By Lindsay Oden. Procrastination is practically inescapable. We feel drained at the end of a long day, too tired from teaching or coursework to start a seminar paper or polish a chapter in our dissertation; sometimes we need time set aside to do stuff that isn’t grad school related. But hiding in procrastination is another fiend that can sap our productivity and make us feel guilty about not working: boredom. Boredom is typically defined as a state of ennui or a weariness caused by dullness or tedium. But Professor of Educational Sciences Dr. Thomas Götz says he has discovered a new type of boredom: apathetic boredom, which he says is an “especially unpleasant form that resembles learned helplessness or depression…. It was reported by 36% of the students sampled.” Boredom is typically treated like a first-world problem, dismissed as a byproduct of the luxury of free time. And we’re grad students, we don’t have free time! But I think it’s highly probable that many of us succumb to apathetic boredom, that feeling of helplessness or desperation produced by overwhelming circumstances when we procrastinate. Erin Bedford has already laid out some excellent tips about how to overcome procrastination. But how can we overcome both procrastination and boredom. Read more...