Procrastinating by Doing Analysis Work?

The past couple of weeks I have been avoiding doing my academic essay.  The question is this: In what ways can researchers do to reduce error in their work so their results are true and honest?  It is all about statistics.  Whilst I have a grasp on the subject matter, I just can’t bare myself to start it.  Instead, I have been procrastinating by doing analysis work.

Analysis work I have done in this week: 1.  Statted a volleyball match. 2.  Organised several meetings to update the StatEasy software so I can export my playlists of Super 8s kills. 3.  Exported 2 of the 6 kill playlists and uploaded it on my youtube channel. 4.  Modified the UWIC Archers spreadsheet to add more data and make it look better.  Had to push the limits of the functions to get a more efficient workflow.  One of the simpler cell functions was this:

=IF(OR(B12=0,B12=” “),-1,’FULL GAME’!X17)

5.  Modified the Super 8s Top 10 list (kills, aces etc) to procure an efficient updating process.  I adopted the above function (and thus process) in this particular spreadsheet and came out with this:

=IF(OR($C3=” “,D3<25),-2,IF(D3=0,0,(E3-F3)/D3))

6.  Writing this blog post (OK, technically this is not analysis work but I am still building my analyst profile).

Essay work I have done this week: 1.  Planned my essay structure (took all of 5 minutes). 2.  Practical work on MiniTab (like SPSS for statistical testing).  I used data from the Super 8s to find out about an assumption I wanted to test out.  That is, nothing to do with the essay.

So pretty much nada!  Just to note, what I found out in MiniTab is mindblowing!  All will be revealed at a later blog post – it will be in the same vein as this blog post.

Procrastinating by doing analysis work? So is the above question right?  Can it be considered procrastinating?  On the one hand, getting a job at the end of it is the goal and building my analysis experience is essential (I did learn one important workflow this week).  On the other hand, I doing a Masters degree and I don’t want to end up with a crap mark and looking like a dummy.  I can’t be looking like a dummy!