Procrastination and Optical Illusions: Part 5

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Procrastination and the Escherian Stairwell

Do  you procrastinate when the task involves writing?  I do.   All. The. Time.  It’s ironic because I like to write.  It allows me to process my thoughts and ideas in my own time.  And to hold on to them.

Writing is a complex activity.   It’s the ultimate form of communication.  Writing even in it’s most basic form requires content and organization.  And it is these two elements that are represented by the Escherian Staircase.

Previous posts in this series have looked at procrastination in terms of:

• Fear and lack of confidence
• Boredom due to mundane or repetitive tasks
• Perfectionism

It’s helpful to determine the cause of our resistance so we can take the steps we need  to beat procrastination and get the job done.

So How does the Escherian Staircase relate to procrastination?

You have to click this link and watch the first little bit of the video.  This staircase is a mind-bender.  At first glance, it looks like the staircase you’d find in any apartment or office building.  Two flights for each floor.

However!  There’s a catch.  Standing on the landing between the two flights,  someone goes up the stairs and around the corner, but then to their astonishment, and the viewers, they come up the first flight.

What?

They’re back where they started.

The Escherian Staircase supposedly exists in Building 7 of the Rochester Institute of Technology.  It’s a clever illusion based on the “impossible reality” artwork of the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher.

The Escherian Staircase is a metaphor for the procrastination that occurs in tasks that require content and organization.  Reports, term papers, presentations, lesson or unit plans.  Having been students at some point in our lives, most of us are familiar with the dread of the looming deadline.

So how is the Escherian Staircase connected to procrastination?

When we don’t have clarity about the outcome, we procrastinate. It’s confusing. We may know a first step or even a second or third but what comes next?

You think you’re making progress.  But just like the Escherian Staircase, you are in fact going in circles and ending up back at your starting point.

You know you’re on The Escherian Staircase if you:

1. Aren’t  making progress.
2.  Have great ideas but no coherency.
3. Can’t really explain your message or main point in a concise manner
4. Are  going in circles

So what do you do if you find you’re on the Escherian Staircase?

The solution to getting off this staircase is to clarify your why.   If we don’t know our destination, we can’t filter through the research.

And if we don’t understand the material well enough, it’s hard to sift through the barrage of ideas and thoughts in our brains.

If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough. ~Einstein

Action Steps

1. Begin with the end in mind.  Covey
2. Know your entry point
3. Establish the steps from the entry point to the end point
4. Using the above, create a funnel system to keep yourself on track
5. Research any gaps that you have in your own knowledge
6. Use a system/s to help you organize your materials
7. Use batch scheduling to help control monkey brain

Action steps in more detail

1. Begin with the end in mind.

   • When planning units of study and lesson plans, I used a technique called “Backwards by Design” by Wiggins and McTighe.  It’s a planning tool along the same line as Covey’s habit.
   • Identifying the desired results – the big ideas or take away gives a roadmap.  Sometimes we think we know where we want to go, but it’s too vague or too broad.  It’s like saying we’re taking a road trip to Ontario as opposed to a road trip to Ottawa to explore Parliament Hill.

2.   Know your entry point

   • Sometimes it’s hard to gauge what understanding your audience brings with them.  And it will vary person to person.
   • Always start with the familiar and build from there.

3. Establish the steps from the entry point to the end point

   • What is essential for your audience to know in order to understand your big idea?
   • These become your fueling stations

4. Using the above, create a funnel system to keep yourself on track

   • Starting more general and broad helps establish a common ground.  However, you need to become more narrow as you near your destination or your message loses it’s sticky factor.  People will form their own take-away and it may not be what you intended.

5. Research any gaps that you have in your own knowledge

   • If the topic is unfamiliar to you then the research may need to come first.
   • Consider this if you’re having difficulty in determining your big idea.
   • Sometimes we think we have a better understanding than we do.  Our research may be too limited and our understanding has gaps.

6. Use a system/s to help you organize your materials

   • This is essential for those of us who are prone to wander down every rabbit trail.  This together with batch scheduling below will help you find and keep order.
   • Trello and Evernote are two that I’ve used extensively. More recently I’ve begun to use OneNote.  Like the other two, it syncs between devices, but the organizational potential is greater.  I’m loving it.
   • If I come across something that isn’t relevant to what I’m currently working on, but is something I want to come back to, I can file it in the appropriate binder on OneNote.

7. Use batch scheduling to help control monkey brain

   • Multi-tasking is a myth.  To try and work on too many things at once hampers productivity.
   • Batch scheduling is just as it sounds.  Grouping like activities, and setting a time to work on those activities.  If you’ve batched the tasks, then when it comes time for the deeper work, you’ve got everything you need and it will help your focus.

This is not an exhaustive list.

These are strategies that I’ve found help me address procrastination.  Deeper work requires content and organization.  When they come together,  it helps focus, which in turn helps overcome procrastination.

I don’t know why some brains gravitate naturally to order and others don’t.  But it you, like me, procrastinate on tasks because you can’t tame your brain, try some of the above.  Remember the Escherian Staircase metaphor to help you take action.

P.S.  If you have strategies that have worked for you or have questions or comments, I’d love to have you leave them in the comments below.

P.S.S. It’s easy to sign-up for the windsandstars newsletter.  See below.

Thanks for reading!

~Priscilla

Thank you for sharing this post! I appreciate it 😊