How stupid & crazy can I be???

[onehusbandsevenkids]

I'll tell you how stupid and crazy I can be....

I have to complete and pass a CNA class as a pre-req to the nursing program I'm starting in Jan. We're almost done, 2 clinical days left and 1 class day left for the class final exam. (and then the state exam in Dec.)

Anyhow...we have a text and we have a 454 page workbook that goes long with the text. Workbooks count for 30% of our final grade. Graded on completion and accuracy.

I am such a terrible procrastinator and irresponsible too, I guess (more like pretty darned depressed and totally burned out on life, but thats another story...).

Our workbooks were due today, this morning at 8am. No exceptions, no excuses for not having them completed and turned in.

When do I start working on completing the 35 chapters in the workbook? Do I work on them as we go through the chapters each week like a normal person? NO - that would be too sensible......Here's when I start to work on my workbook....

Last night at 9:30pm. Plus I really underestimated the difficulty of the material aong with procrastinating terribly. So, at 9:30, the kids are in bed finally, husband is asleep with a headache and I have peace and quiet.

I get to working on the 35 chapters...10:30 comes, 11:45 comes, keep working....only taking a break to pee and make a new cup of coffee. 1:20am comes and goes....keep working....2:35am comes, 3:50am comes.

I have to be up at 6:30am at the very latest to be at clincals before 8am, startijng to get really tired and really nervous. Tell myself to keep going, I can survive on 2 hours of sleep...4:45 comes and goes.....5:27am comes.

Finally I cant stand it anymore and I have to go lay down. Have to be up and about in an hour. I should have just stayed awake, made another cup of coffee. Have to be rested for a full clinical day...yeah, right!

So, alarm goes off way too quickly and I jump out of bed. Still have some pages to finish. Work for another half hour. Have got to leave! Throw on my uniform, brush my teeth, make a lukewarm cup of coffee to go, don't even brush my hair or put makeup on...do that in the car on the way to the clinical site.....STILL have pages left undone in the workbook.....Arrive with 3 minutes to spare - no time to finish, hope and pray for the best....hand in the workbook.

For the accuracy grade the instructor flips to a random page in the workbook and grades the first 10 questions on the page. If she flips to a page not completed - too bad ...grade for accuracy will be a 0%

Sweating it the whole day.....we get our workbooks back before we left this afternoon and I got a 98% for completion and a 100% for accuracy - so my grade is a 99%

THANK YOU GOD!!!! Pure luck.

But WHY do do this to myself? How dumb can someone be???? Talk about self-defeating......

So, that was my STUPID...here is my CRAZY...

For my first semester in actual nursing school I'll be taking 17 credit hours.

No way around it. On Tuesdays I'll be gone from home from 6:45am until approx. 9:00pm. M & W are full days. Th I get a bit of a break - dont have to be in until 5pm. Fridays are pretty full too.

A & P II (plus lab), Pharmacology (plus lab), Nursing 105, Nursing 110 (all with clincals & labs), Human Growth & Development, and a required Intro to Nursing (nursing history and stuff....)

Plus a husband with a demanding job, a marriage in trouble, plus 7 kids, no support system, no help, no family in the area for any relief.

As it is now, 12 credit hours has been tough this semester and A&P I has been kicking my butt. (mostly because I'm procrastinating and not putting in the time and effort needed.) We have fianls for A&P I in two weeks and I relly need to go back to the beginning of the book and start furiously relearning everything in prep for the finals cause without doing that I won't pass which means no nursing program.

So, do I qualify for being 100% certifiably insane??? This is gonna be some coming semester, let me tell you....definately make or break and I'm really, really gonna have to get VERY disciplined and organized and stop procrastinating!!!!

Somebody please tell me I can do it if I put my mind to it. I'm a pretty intelligent person but I keep self-sabatogizing myself here. I work very well under pressure and deadlines and under stress but this is crazy!!!

Okay, I still haven't slept at all yet and my eyes are crossing here...Y'all have a great holiday and don't be like me!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God my husband loves doing all of the Thanksgiving cooking! I'll be studying all day!

[Liddle Noodnik]

I'll tell you how stupid and crazy I can be....

I have to complete and pass a CNA class as a pre-req to the nursing program I'm starting in Jan. We're almost done, 2 clinical days left and 1 class day left for the class final exam. (and then the state exam in Dec.)

Anyhow...we have a text and we have a 454 page workbook that goes long with the text. Workbooks count for 30% of our final grade. Graded on completion and accuracy.

I am such a terrible procrastinator and irresponsible too, I guess (more like pretty darned depressed and totally burned out on life, but thats another story...).

Our workbooks were due today, this morning at 8am. No exceptions, no excuses for not having them completed and turned in.

When do I start working on completing the 35 chapters in the workbook? Do I work on them as we go through the chapters each week like a normal person? NO - that would be too sensible......Here's when I start to work on my workbook....

Last night at 9:30pm. Plus I really underestimated the difficulty of the material aong with procrastinating terribly. So, at 9:30, the kids are in bed finally, husband is asleep with a headache and I have peace and quiet.

I get to working on the 35 chapters...10:30 comes, 11:45 comes, keep working....only taking a break to pee and make a new cup of coffee. 1:20am comes and goes....keep working....2:35am comes, 3:50am comes.

I have to be up at 6:30am at the very latest to be at clincals before 8am, startijng to get really tired and really nervous. Tell myself to keep going, I can survive on 2 hours of sleep...4:45 comes and goes.....5:27am comes.

Finally I cant stand it anymore and I have to go lay down. Have to be up and about in an hour. I should have just stayed awake, made another cup of coffee. Have to be rested for a full clinical day...yeah, right!

So, alarm goes off way too quickly and I jump out of bed. Still have some pages to finish. Work for another half hour. Have got to leave! Throw on my uniform, brush my teeth, make a lukewarm cup of coffee to go, don't even brush my hair or put makeup on...do that in the car on the way to the clinical site.....STILL have pages left undone in the workbook.....Arrive with 3 minutes to spare - no time to finish, hope and pray for the best....hand in the workbook.

For the accuracy grade the instructor flips to a random page in the workbook and grades the first 10 questions on the page. If she flips to a page not completed - too bad ...grade for accuracy will be a 0%

Sweating it the whole day.....we get our workbooks back before we left this afternoon and I got a 98% for completion and a 100% for accuracy - so my grade is a 99%

THANK YOU GOD!!!! Pure luck.

But WHY do do this to myself? How dumb can someone be???? Talk about self-defeating......

So, that was my STUPID...here is my CRAZY...

For my first semester in actual nursing school I'll be taking 17 credit hours.

No way around it. On Tuesdays I'll be gone from home from 6:45am until approx. 9:00pm. M & W are full days. Th I get a bit of a break - dont have to be in until 5pm. Fridays are pretty full too.

A & P II (plus lab), Pharmacology (plus lab), Nursing 105, Nursing 110 (all with clincals & labs), Human Growth & Development, and a required Intro to Nursing (nursing history and stuff....)

Plus a husband with a demanding job, a marriage in trouble, plus 7 kids, no support system, no help, no family in the area for any relief.

As it is now, 12 credit hours has been tough this semester and A&P I has been kicking my butt. (mostly because I'm procrastinating and not putting in the time and effort needed.) We have fianls for A&P I in two weeks and I relly need to go back to the beginning of the book and start furiously relearning everything in prep for the finals cause without doing that I won't pass which means no nursing program.

So, do I qualify for being 100% certifiably insane??? This is gonna be some coming semester, let me tell you....definately make or break and I'm really, really gonna have to get VERY disciplined and organized and stop procrastinating!!!!

Somebody please tell me I can do it if I put my mind to it. I'm a pretty intelligent person but I keep self-sabatogizing myself here. I work very well under pressure and deadlines and under stress but this is crazy!!!

Okay, I still haven't slept at all yet and my eyes are crossing here...Y'all have a great holiday and don't be like me!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God my husband loves doing all of the Thanksgiving cooking! I'll be studying all day!

You're a riot! LOL! thanks for the laugh - the workbook - I cannot believe that you got a 98!

I'm a wicked procrastinator so I can relate -

Good luck darlin -

[Wondergirl0905]

For my procrastination, I use this great web site- it's free: www.43things.com Not nurisng related, but helpful.

What a neat website! I am also working on my procrastination problem. The hardest thing for me has been studying for the pre-entrance and actually applying to a program. But I did finally get myself together and sign up for A&P. I hope I don't procrastinate the studying, not that I'll have time working two jobs...

[prmenrs, RN]

You might want to take a [brief] look at procrastination, perfection and ADD. I think they can be related in adults.

When I was a student (ok, so it was a gazillion years ago), we all lived in a dorm. We had to have lights out @ 10pm, and we had a housemother who would go stand in the street, looking up @ the building to see who still had their light on, then go tell them to go to bed.

The night before the NLN acheivement test in Pediatrics (NLN tests were BIG in our school), I still had ~ 6 care plans to turn in, also due the next day--very complicated, even included what dentition to expect @ the age of the pt, all the nursing care, pathophysiology of their disease process, lots of minute, detailed info. I spent most of my night IN MY CLOSET w/a lamp (b/o the lights out thing) completing those damn care plans!!!

It must of been a good way of reviewing the coursework because I got a 99% on the League exam!! And no one was more surprised than my instructors, who thought I was one of the biggest losers they ever met, and were doing their darndest to make that a self fulfilling prophecy!

[Mr.N8]

I've done similar things. For example, I once wrote a very important, 25 page research paper in 36 hours -- no sleep, obviously. It was assigned about 2 months before it was due. It is very self-sabatoging. I was reamed out once by my critical care instructor, the ONLY time I was actually caught in my procrastinating (I'd gotten away with it before). She said I was a smart, capable woman and I was not going to enjoy my life and I was going to make a bad impression on people in the real world if I wasn't crossing my T's, dotting my I's and keeping on top of things. She was right.

See, the reason many people are able to get away with procrastinating is that they ARE smart -- they can get by on the bare minumum and they know what the bare minimum is. They are WASTING their potential to be the best that they can be. I learned less in school than I would have if I had given it my all and I truly regret that. This is a habit that can, and will, get many people kicked out of nursing school.

I recently ordered this book:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0874775043/102-2522242-4509748?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glance

I hope it helps, I'll let you know! Maybe we need a procrastinators encouragement group, just like a weight loss encouragement group or something! :rotfl:

Awesome!!! A book about procrastination! I've got to check that link out someday and perhaps get around to ordering that book!

N8