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When I was writing my thesis I had one rule that kept me going: one page a day. Every day I had to add at least one page to my thesis. It could come from text or charts or a table or the bibliography or wherever, but that page count had to go up every day.

Some days, I added a paragraph that spilled over onto the first line of a new page and that was that. Other days, one page became five became 20 as I hit a rhythm. It was always about giving myself that chance to hit it off for the day.



I did this for awhile until I couldn't even motivate myself to write a single word. Or if I absolutely managed to force myself to write some words, the next day I would edit them back to 0.

Procrastination that stems from negative emotional processes isn't so easily beaten.




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