Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 31

Often it is easy to put off starting – or continuing – with your essay by telling yourself that it is for the best. A particularly effective argument is that you will be better prepared later on. This can be effective in convincing yourself to wait, not least because you might be feeling sub-optimal right now; perhaps you are tired, hazy or distracted – not like that image of ‘the essay writer’ that you have conjured up in your head. You might even be able to persuade yourself that you cannot possibly start that essay without a bit more reading, more time to understand the ideas or a really clear sense of what to write. If you have experienced this – and many of us have – has it ever really worked out? It may be that sometimes it really has, perhaps in quite special circumstances, but most of the time this is just one of the ways we persuade ourselves to escape for now from the task before us. As we do this, we are in danger of building our essay into something extraordinarily demanding, something which requires us to be in increasingly super-human form to tackle.

Most of the time it is better to even complete a few brief moments of work on your essay than to wait for this time when we are alert, primed for action, free of distraction and full of energy. Probably few of us feel like this most of the time, so don’t wait around for this supercharged feeling to descend on you. You don’t need it – you can almost certainly write now. The strange thing is that when we start writing – even though we feel tired and uninformed – we can often feel our way into the issues and ideas and make contact with at least some sort of writing energy. It is even more effective for getting in the zone than watching YouTube clips about 24 pets that can talk like humans.