Persist! Discovering your own patterns Here are some of the most common dysfunctional patterns relating to time use: i Doing the least important work first. i Procrastination. i “Fire fighting” (doing what is urgent rather than what is important). i Letting your inner critic dominate your thoughts. How can you open our eyes to your own patterns? First, be clear why you’re doing this. It’s not so you can beat yourself up even more about your failures. You’re doing it so you can figure out what you can do differently in order to get better results. So, with that in mind,.