How to Get Over Procrastination in a Day

On Tuesday I procrastinated worse than I had in months. I couldn’t even approach my desk, and spent a large part of the day in bed. Not sick: just hiding. I was unhappy about this, since I have deadlines like everyone else. And a part of me was thinking things like: “This sucks.” “I’m falling…

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New Parenthood Can Lead to Situational Perfectionism

A new parent writes to syndicated advice columnist Carolyn Hax about how stressful it can be: I’m a new mom of a pretty but challenging 6-month-old boy. I am a naturally decisive person; however, the anxiety I’m feeling over making the “right” decisions or providing him the “right” things has been difficult to cope with.…

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Harry Potter and the Boggart Perfectionism

Harry Potter fans recall boggarts as creatures who live in dark household spaces like cupboards and closets and who, when you encounter one, take on the appearance of whatever it is you are most afraid of. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, there’s a great scene where Professor Lupin and his students provoke…

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The Importance of Perception to Productivity Work

People carrying a backpack or other weight typically estimate hills to be much longer and steeper than they really are, to a greater degree than unencumbered people. It also turns out, however, that if someone puts a backpack on your avatar you will experience virtual “hills” as being longer and steeper than they really are.…

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For Kids: Fern’s Writers Block (from Arthur)

Note Fern’s situational perfectionism, caused by: *being told her story will be the “main event” at the next day’s Fiction Forum *being told a famous author will be there *being labeled as “creative.” Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck says that when you praise kids for attributes–by calling them, for instance, “smart” or “creative”–they freeze up, in…

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“Mean” Duck Mom and Unhelpful Bystanders!

So…check out this video of a mother duck forcing her ducklings to jump down a high ledge onto a concrete walkway: Ouch! I found it painful to watch. The Mom Duck is just doing her thing, but I’ve seen similar videos where a kindly bystander finds a plank or other mechanism to give the baby…

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Tiger Moms Don’t Just Suck, They Don’t Even Exist as a Category

Slate writes up the study by University of Texas psychology professor Su Yeong Kim analyzing children of so-called Tiger Moms. Yes, “tiger parenting” stinks: “Authoritarian parenting combines coercion with less responsiveness, and leads to higher depressive symptoms and lower self-esteem…. [they] produced kids who felt more alienated from their parents and experienced higher instances of…

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The Right Way to Cope With Your Kid’s Perfectionism

Jules at Pancakes & French Fries writes about what she perceives to be the perfectionist tendencies her young son has inherited from her: Mikey inherited my drive for perfection. Last week I hung in the laundry room some of my favorite drawings the boys have made over the years. Nico doesn’t draw as well as…

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Enid Blyton: Prolific Writer

The Guardian reports on a new exhibit on famed British children’s writer Enid Blyton. She produced more than 700 books, mainly for young readers, and was very disciplined both in her writing habits and her bookkeeping and business management: But grown-up visitors will be intrigued to see how little editing Blyton’s manuscripts needed. She would…

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Seth Godin on Why You Shouldn’t Take Critics Too Seriously

“Have you noticed just how often the critics disagree with one another? And how often they’re just wrong? “And yet we not only read them, but we believe them. Worse, we judge ourselves, contrasting our feelings with their words. Worse still, we sometimes think we hear the feared critic’s voice before we even ship our…

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