Rubber Ducking for Procrastination

In software engineering, there is a concept called “rubber duck debugging.” It’s a strategy to identify and remove errors from your code by explaining your problem to a rubber duck out loud. This week¹, my mentor was my rubber duck and my problem was that I hadn’t made progress on my burner project.

During my UX journey, I’ve been discovering more and more of the why behind my tendency to procrastinate and the why behind my struggles with consistency.

Sometimes, I’m able to figure out what’s holding me back on my own — usually the task is unpleasant to me in some way, whether it’s uninteresting to me, or feels overwhelming for one reason or the other. This past week, I was working on my Burner Project Research Problem Statement — basically what problem did I want to address with my project.

As I was working on completing a provided chart, I felt stuck — was I supposed to write this from the knowledge I had? But the in the notes and example there were hard statistics. How would I get these statistics without doing secondary research? But secondary research was the next assignment, so clearly I’m supposed to create this before I do that. What if I work on this and find out no one else cares about the things I think are problems? Oh no, I definitely picked the wrong topic. I should have gone with a physical therapy app idea. Is it too late to change? Will I get enough people to interview for a physical therapy app? What angle would I take?²

…these are just some of the thoughts that flooded my brain in quick succession as I became overwhelmed and paralyzed by uncertainty.

Two minutes before my mentor meeting, I submitted my assignment even though I felt embarrassed by my efforts. I thought, I need to have something done. I didn’t want to go a week without having submitted anything.

And, this was absolutely the right call! The first 10 minutes of the call was me blabbering to my mentor about what was causing me confusion and blocking me. As I gave a voice to my stream of consciousness, I realized a few things.

1. There is no perfect or right way to do assignments
   In school we’re trained to do an assignment once and receive a grade for it, and I think this mindset still impacts me deeply. In the real world, there are often multiple drafts and iterations of projects, ideas, etc that get critiqued, iterated on, and improved upon. I think letting go of perfectionism is a common struggle for many designers, and for me it applies to non-design work as well. I need to get comfortable submitting things as they are.
2. As long as I’m learning, I’m succeeding
   Who cares if it doesn’t address a real problem that applies to the majority of users? This is a nice to have, but this project is about learning the process, and if I am able to provide a solution to a big need, that’s just a bonus. If I make mistakes, they’re just learning opportunities I can use for my next project.
3. Get feedback early
   Lastly, I recognized that the sooner I submit my assignments, the sooner I can get feedback and improve on my work. And I remembered that this is a process, if I learn more as I do my research, I can always make changes and update my past work to better fit whatever direction I take.

And so, as I came to the end of my anxious chattering, my fears assuaged and feeling at peace about moving forward with my project, I thanked my mentor for being my rubber duck.

¹ I actually drafted this awhile ago so not literally this week

² My therapist would probably tell me that I’m spiraling and to take a deep breath :)