In this week’s tutorial, the tutor and I discussed where to start looking for help from experts. the tutor gave me a good idea: NLP( Neuro-Linguistic Programming). NLP is the practice of understanding how people organize their thinking, feeling, language and behavior to produce the results they do. NLP provides people with a methodology to model outstanding performances achieved by geniuses and leaders in their fields.

I got an initial understanding of NLP by studying online materials. Unlike the videos on YouTube, NLP is promoted on Chinese social media platforms as a tool for family relationships, marital problems, and corporate HR issues. But in my studies, I realized that the swish pattern could be used as a means to help me with my project.
In this week’s study, I have found some new directions to narrow down my problems. I have never been clear on how to define procrastination, so I have not been able to design very effective tests, but this week, inspired by the swish pattern, I decided to start with some small procrastination events to discuss what is the trigger of the specific procrastination.

Participents who attended my last workshop said it was good, but there are still some areas that could be improved. So in this intervention, I’ve adjusted some parts and tried to make my workshop more productive.

1. Shorten the length of time. The last workshop was originally planned to start at 20:00 and end at 1am. This workshop started from 3-5pm. At the same time, I limited everyone’s working hours to 1 hour. Even if someone didn’t have work you plan to accomplish, they had to stop. With the 1-hour limit, participants are made aware of the speed of their work and the importance of time management.

2. Increase the background diversity of participants. Last time, the participants were all students of our major, and everyone knew each other well. Some of the participants at this time work in different fields. Compared with the relaxed and a little loose atmosphere of the last time, the atmosphere of this time was a little tense and too quiet. How to liven up the atmosphere is what I need to improve next.

3. Prevent participants from interfering with each other. In the last workshop, participants reported that they would be disturbed by people around them when they were working. People sometimes start chatting. So in this workshop, I set a game rule: let everyone supervises each other by giving the ‘annoying person’ a red card. This rule worked very well, no one was chatting, and everyone was focused on learning. But the atmosphere is too quiet, making people feel pressured. How to balance the relaxed atmosphere and the tense working state is what I will research next.

On the live streaming page of Bilibili, the video website with the most GenZ users in China, there is a column called Learning Accompany. Many people are preparing for tests and making themselves more self-disciplined and more motivated to learn.

At the same time, many viewers will enter the live-streaming room to study with the anchor. So I thought about whether, for artists, it is possible to use live streaming to focus on their work rather than procrastinate. 

A couple of weeks ago, I stumbled across two artists studying at the Goldsmith MA Computational Art course, that were live streaming on Instagram. So I interviewed Long, the promoter of the live streaming.

• Q: Why did you decide to start live?
• A: Because I work at home, I have the habit of keeping video calls with artist friends, like working together. So I thought why not to start a live.
• Q: Do you think live streaming makes you more productive?
• A: Not at all. I was very inefficient that day. The reason was not that other artist’s working affected me but that tourists trying to connect with us were too noisy, which affected my efficiency.
• Q: Why did you choose live instead of video meeting?
• A: First of all, it is really novel, and I’d like to have a try. Besides, You can let people in your social circle know what you have been doing recently。
• Q: Do you think friends in your live can supervise you?
• A: No. We are very familiar to each other.

As can be seen from the interview, there is a big difference between studying for an exam and working as an artist. Because the work of the artist is often creative, not a repetitive practice of the exercises. Therefore, the live of the accompanying learning mode cannot be directly tried on the artist.

WWHI PROPOSAL

What:

My research area is procrastination among the recent graduate creative industries freelancer. The precise question I will be addressing is How Can Recent Graduated Freelancers in Creative Industries Work Healthy with Procrastination. And my research mainly focus on two question: How can procrastinating be a motivation and How can people stop avoid starting do something.

Why:

In the post pandemic era, people working from home or freelancing is prevailing. Besides, based on the Web3.0 developing and the popularity of stream-media, creative industries are having more and more freelancers.

Time management and mental health related to procrastination can be big problems to our generation.

I made a questionnaire with 442 respondents, most of whom are Generation Z. According to the survey, 97.06% of the respondents think they having a issue with procrastination. 

It is important to remember that everyone procrastinates. However, problematic procrastination can be distinguished from more general procrastination, by how bad the negative consequences are of us not following through on things.

How

1. AMUSEMENT

My inspiration came from the book <Creatives on Creativities>, which contains 44 artists’ interview. I found out that deadline and procrastination sometimes can be a powerful tool in the creative works. In the meanwhile, half of the respondents in my survey think there are positive effects of procrastination. In a western Australian government website, a research shows there are negative and positive circle when you are procrastinating and the website provides several practical strategies to stop it, such as ‘using momentum’， ‘prime time’， ‘prime place’， ‘plan reward’，etc. I summarized those strategies into one word ‘AMUSEMENT’. And ‘AMUSEMENT’ is the first element of my intervention.

• NIGHT

Base on the ‘prime time’ strategy, we should start our work at a time which we are most energetic, so I tried to find out what time is best for my stakeholders. The <Creatives on Creativities> shows many 30-50 year-old artists are morning person. However, in my survey, more than 70% Gen Z people suggest evening and midnight are the best working time. Therefore I choose night as the prime time and the second element of my intervention.

• GROUP

I read many articles in the psychology area to figure out the cause and solutions of the procrastination. There is a study investigated in 2021 shows that procrastinators get rewards from interdependence group outcome, their rating on procrastination were lower than non-interdependence individuals.

 herefore, ‘group’ is the third element of the intervention.

Procrastination Night Intervention

 I combined the 3 elements together and made a conclusion that I could holding Procrastination Night Intervention. Here intervention also means its normal definition: an occurrence in which a person with a problem (such as a drug addiction) is confronted by a group (as of friends or family members) whose purpose is to compel the person to acknowledge and deal with the problem.

 So in my intervention, everyone bring their difficult tasks to the intervention. And we start doing the most difficult work together. Then, everyone get rewards together (such as party). And I made I schedule to develop my intervention in order to scale it up during this year.

What If

At the end of the course, the project will investigate whether night working interventions can relief the procrastinating anxiety and motivate working of recent graduates in creative industries

By a entertaining way to face procrastination, the project is going to helping Gen Z stay healthy with their lifestyle.  

How can people get rid of procrastinating?

Inside the mind of a master procrastinator 

At the beginning of the project, I tried to continue my topic in project 4 which is related to my former career—-media and advertising. I wanted to see the change in the advertising on social media: How can cosmetic consumers trust the products in the ‘Interest-Based E-commerce’ environment?

However, after brainstorming, I felt that the topic was too narrow. And there is also another problem: I am a content creator, and doing this theme is conflicting with my interests. On the one hand, I hope consumers can tell the differences between advertorial and real recommendations. On the other hand, I still want to make product placement in my videos. Therefore, If I continued to do this topic, I would feel dishonest to myself. Because in the deep side of my heart, I don’t want this thing to happen.

In the coming days, I reconsidered my topic. I asked myself what is bothering me and what change I really want to see. As the summer term got closer and closer, I felt extremely stressed and tense. I knew I have to start doing the project but I cannot help myself postponing. I know I was procrastinating again. I realized that procrastination is a significant problem for me. When I scheduled my tasks, I always postpone them until the deadline is coming. When I finally do the task I have to lower my standard due to the lack of time. I surveyed 108 respondents and I found that everyone had the same troubles, so I decided to choose the topic of procrastination.

Firstly, I watched several Ted talks about procrastination, In the lecture, the speakers explained the causes of procrastination in vivid language, which aroused my interest in further research. Immediately, I googled whether procrastination is a disease. Surprisingly, the website shows procrastination is not a mental health diagnosis; in another word, it’s just a habit. After that, I researched some articles in the psychology area. In the article called Modeling Procrastination: Asymmetric Decisions to Act Between The result section of Present and the Future, the author makes a result that reluctance to act occurred only when task aversiveness has stronger effects than outcome utility. This result shows that if the task is not so difficult to complete, we are still willing to continue.

I also did some research on the cause we are doing trivia things other than tasks. Dopamine can be an important cause. Today, because of high dopamine secretion activities such as playing video games or scrolling social media, our brains get used to a high level. Therefore, people are more inclined to do simple things rather than make efforts. This assumption gave me a lot of inspiration. This reminds me of Alcoholism Anonymous in the US, an international mutual aid fellowship dedicated to abstinence-based recovery from alcoholism.

At the same time, the conclusion of the article Social Factors of Procrastination: Group Work Can Reduce Procrastination among Students states that group work with interdependence between group members can reduce state procrastination, especially for individuals with high trait procrastination and when accompanied by commitment. So I think that we have an opportunity to minimize procrastination symptoms through some group activities. And the change I want to see is people getting rid of procrastination.

References

Breuninger, Matthew M., Justine A. Grosso, William Hunter, and Sara L. Dolan. 2020. “Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder: Integration of Alcoholics Anonymous and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.” Training and Education in Professional Psychology 14(1): 19–26.

Hughes, Sara, and Joanna Adhikari. 2022. “Time Wasters?: Active Procrastination and the Dark Tetrad.” Journal of Individual Differences 43(2): 89–94.

Koppenborg, Markus, and Katrin B. Klingsieck. 2022. “Social Factors of Procrastination: Group Work Can Reduce Procrastination among Students.” Social Psychology of Education 25(1): 249–74.

Margherita, Emanuele Gabriel, and Alessio Maria Braccini. 2021. “Managing Industry 4.0 Automation for Fair Ethical Business Development: A Single Case Study.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change 172: 121048.

McKellar, John, Eric Stewart, and Keith Humphreys. 2003. “Alcoholics Anonymous Involvement and Positive Alcohol-Related Outcomes: Cause, Consequence, or Just a Correlate? A Prospective 2-Year Study of 2,319 Alcohol-Dependent Men.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71(2): 302–8.

Zhang, Shunmin, and Tingyong Feng. 2020. “Modeling Procrastination: Asymmetric Decisions to Act between the Present and the Future.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 149(2): 311–22.