Latest Entry - Procrastination (Oh, the irony!)

I'm honestly shocked. I just wrote this in less than an hour. It's so ironic too, being about procrastination when I have a few assignments due soon that I haven't finished. Regardless, I hope you enjoy!

Procrastination. I’m literally staring at a blank white screen on Microsoft Word, trying to think of what to write in order to describe this. But even as I stare at it, I have that all-too-familiar tugging sensation, trying to pull me away from being productive and attempting to throw me back into the depths of distraction – Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Vine, and countless other websites that I “waste” my time on. But why do I feel such a strong urge to kick my studies, and more importantly, I guess, my goals to the metaphorical curb like garbage?

Everyone gets the urge to procrastinate. Hell, you might as well say that everyone procrastinates, in one form or another. Be it leaving a huge term paper to the night before, or leaving a writing passage you’ve started weeks ago to collect dust, or in some extreme cases, even not bothering to get up off your ass to go get groceries, even if you risk starving. Yeah, that’s a pretty extreme case, but hey, it does happen. Procrastination affects everyone, but it affects some way more than others.

Okay, let’s start this whole thing by trying to “formally” (more or less) define this monstrosity of a term. Procrastination. Procrastination. Procrast… Sorry, just got a message on Facebook that I simply had to answer. Now then, if we use our trusty source the Internet, we find that Merriam-Webster defines procrastination as the following:

pro·cras·ti·nate

 verb \prə-ˈkras-tə-ˌnāt, prō-\

: To be slow or late about doing something that should be done: to delay doing something until a later time because you do not want to do it, because you are lazy, etc.

The obvious point here is that we’re slow or late (but not always late) to do or perform a task. It might not be essential (however it is a lot of the time), but it should be done. The most important part comes next – “… until a later time because you do not want to do it, because you are lazy”. You don’t want to do it, huh? You feel lazy, eh? Don’t want to drag your sorry butt off of your computer chair to do it? Or if it’s on the computer, don’t feel like closing down Facebook, Twitter and the like? I know that feeling.

I’m a heavy procrastinator myself. I like to refer to people like me as “procrastiknights”, as we are chivalrous beings who, while sworn to defend our goals at all costs, can never really get up and give a damn. Many of us say that we’re too lazy to do something, or simply “don’t want to do it”. The underlying problem to these claims is this – in today’s society, technology has become king. Social media, crowdsourcing, all of that jazz and fun post-modern lingo, has become of top importance. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing, the amount of distractions present for us is pretty substantial.

Now, this isn’t to say that older generations weren’t distracted – there were other ways for them as technology wasn’t at the stage that it’s at today. Technology has simply become the “new thing” for people to use, overuse, and finally overindulge on. You see so many teenagers today opening up their iPhones (and I guess Android phones which are on the rise too… yay for competition between overpriced plastic boxes with sound and video!), snapping a picture and posting it on Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat (this one’s especially fun as a time-waster), Instagram and more. Distractions are taking us over!

Alright, I’m not even going to explain why this ties in to procrastination – it’s pretty obvious. What, it’s not? Ok then, well here it is in short: let’s say you’re working on a report for your high school English class (or if you’re an adult out of school, a report that needs to be submitted to your supervisor for review). It’s due in a week and a half. You’re happily brainstorming away, when you notice someone tweeted at you. Oh, how nice of them! You HAVE to reply back, or else it’s not nice! That conversation continues on for about a half hour. Once that’s over with, you start to get back to brainstorming. Oh wait, your iPhone buzzed and you have three new messages on BBM (Blackberry Instant Messenger for those uninformed)! Again, you have to respond, because they can see when you have read the messages! Now, a lot of the time you aren’t 100% focused on just chatting, and are still brainstorming for your report. However, the quality is suffering, and you’re going to need to spend extra time hammering out these details. This report’s pretty important, as you realize. Ten minutes after you begin to work again, one of your close friends sends you a link to a funny Vine they saw. Here we go, you say to yourself. You watch the vine, and have a laugh attack! It’s so hilarious that you have to watch it ten more times, and even then it’s still funny. At this point, you’re caught in a hilarity loop – you’re laughing so hard that your mind tells you “I want more funny!” You gladly comply, and spend the next half an hour watching funny Vines. Afterwards, it’s too late to even focus on your brainstorming notes, so you go to sleep, hoping that tomorrow is a better day.

Unfortunately, this process has been shown to repeat multiple times, so there’s a pretty decent chance that while you’ve taken the initiative to start early, you might find yourself using those precious last minutes, the night before it’s due in, to work on it. You stay up until the wee hours of the morning, but it’s finally finished – albeit maybe at a lesser quality than you’d like, but its’ done. It’s a good feeling of accomplishment, which boosts your morale. However, what this does is it creates a mental note in your head that says “Ok, so that worked! I can leave a lot of it to the last minute and just stay up really late to finish it, no problem”. So, your mind convinces you to continue this process for future projects, which is absolutely what you’re trying to avoid!

Okay, I lied. That wasn’t that short. But do you get the point? By getting distracted by current technologies it’s enabling you to put yourself in unproductive loops, thereby making throwing your time management skills out the window. Now, obviously technology isn’t the only distraction – you might have a girlfriend, or plans with friends, or a job you work at to make money. These are all contributing factors! Some are avoidable, some aren’t. Well, in reality all of them are avoidable, but it’s all about how you manage your time, as well as making sure your planning and scheduling for everything you do fits with what you want to accomplish and how you want to live.

I’m not going to pretend that I’m a master of time management, because I’m not. I won’t say “never in a million years”, but probably pretty close to that definition. Like me, many of you have probably scoured libraries and the web, looking for better ways to manage your time. I can’t count how many YouTube videos on motivation and time management I’ve watched on my two hands, and I’m still in this pickle. So, my fellow procrastiknights (is it catching on?), how can we work towards fixing this problem? How can we crush the Procrastination Epidemic?

Well, I’ll tell you something. I just realized it as I wrote the words “Procrastination Epidemic” on this paper. I went an entire almost ten minutes without getting distracted while writing this. It’s only three pages (I’m not a literary wizard, you know!) but it’s a revelation! I never even checked my phone or Facebook, which is a feat in itself. I definitely don’t have a reliable statistic, but I’d imagine that the average person (either with their computer or phone) checks Facebook alone around every two to three minutes, give or take a little. I’d go as far to say that the average person uses social media, or their phone, or any other distracting online or electronic activity around every twenty to thirty seconds. This might be a completely BS statement, but for me at least, this statistic is true. Even when I’m working on a written assignment, I find myself going on Reddit or twitter many times in a minute, even if to just check for updates. It’s become like an impulse, like my body needs its’ electronic thirst quenched, or something.

Sorry, drifting a bit off point. Here’s that big revelation I’m talking about: Filling your time with things that you’re actually interested in and would be more or less content with doing can help you to get less distracted. Now, this is probably insanely cliché, and it’s probably so vague you want to stop reading right now (just kidding… please don’t, or else the unread words will be sad).

But for everyone, for everything, there’s a point where doing a task gets so boring, so routine, or so overbearing that we resort to distracting ourselves with mediums that give us little bursts of satisfaction. Like “ooh, I got a like!”, or “A verified account just followed me on Twitter, ohmygod!” These little bursts are treated in our minds as a sort of replacement for that large feeling of satisfaction that comes with doing the work you’re actually supposed to be doing. It’s not just that feeling when you finish though – as cliché is it gets, it actually is also about the journey. If you’re working on a project, and you’re actually getting some enjoyment out of it (maybe not the laughing kind, but a gratifying feeling of getting informed or gaining experience), your mind will pick up on this. It will sense that you’re feeling that sense of satisfaction, even if the project might at first bore you to tears! These intrinsic rewards or general feelings of self-appreciation and “psychological gold stars”, as I like to say, help to motivate you further to achieving what you set out to do. In this case, it’s doing a project. In someone else’s case, it might be losing 50 pounds. Or in another, climbing mount Everest! While these objectives are hugely different, they all have the same underlying principle: The goal might seem monstrous, and the journey might seem even worse to have to go through, but if you spin it in a perspective that you can use to actually get enjoyment out of it, you can push through with insane willingness you may have never seen yourself have!

Alright, now at this point you’re maybe thinking to yourself, “Wow, this is pretty motivational. I want to go conquer my dreams!” But wait, just stop for a second. I know that this might be very helpful information, but just stop, and think: you might have read or this exact same information many times before. Now, you shouldn’t be asking things like “well, what’s different this time then?” because I’ll tell you that nothing is different this time. Absolutely NOTHING. I dare say that some of what I’ve written for you is motivational fluff, but there’s a purpose. Without stuffing, a stuffed animal is just a shell of what it can be. Right? I think that makes sense. But what I’m saying is that all of this is very informational, but without a solid action plan, it all goes to the dumpster. You have to work with yourself to transform what you’ve learned into concrete steps to success. This is the hardest part, because while your head may be full of thoughts, like goals, dreams, aspirations and general ideas of how to get there, putting these thoughts into coherent processes on paper takes time and effort. Luckily for you, as a Procrastiknight, you can make this your first challenge against procrastination!

What I want you to do RIGHT NOW is this: Write down your goals and dreams. Okay, wait a minute. Wait just one second. Let me clear this up – when you do this, don’t think. There’s a little thing in psychology called stream of consciousness, which is the basic principle that the mind is always spouting things out, even if you’re not specifically trying to think of it. For example, if someone came up to you and said, “Quick, say the first five words that come to your head!” your responses might be completely random: broccoli, mouse, skyscraper, plant, esophagus! That’s stream of consciousness.

So what I want you to do now for me is a variation on your stream of consciousness. I want you to think of two words separately. The first word is goals. Goals can mean anything to you, be they short-term or long-term, but for these goals I want you to try to be as realistic as you can. Finish this week’s paper? Good one. Become the first astronaut on Mars? It’s an okay one, not super realistic but passable. Write all of these down on a single piece of paper, with the word “Goals” in big letters at the top. Good! Now then, the second word I want you to think of is dreams. Similar to goals, dreams are the things that you wish to aspire to. Be elected President or Prime Minister? Awesome! Be your high school class’ Valedictorian? Fantastic! Write these down on another sheet, titled “Dreams” in big letters at the top.

I bet you might notice something. Do your sheets have similar words or sentences? I thought that they might. For many, goals and dreams are very similar, rather than unique. Whereas dreams are things many only wish they could fulfill, goals, for many people, are things that they are willing to put the effort into to accomplish. If you noticed that your goals and dreams sheets have similarities, I would start smiling right about now, because by having your goals and dreams align, it means that subconsciously (or knowingly) you are willing to put the effort in to reach your dreams.

This is HUGELY related to procrastination, because it is a barrier that you must overcome in your pursuit of your goals and dreams. This barrier will definitely pop up many times and may feel almost impossible at times to overcome. But it’s doable every time. You just have to make the work you do enjoyable, relatable, and exciting so you can kick procrastination right in the butt. You are a Procrastiknight! With real goals, and amazing dreams and aspirations!

Alright, cool down time. I’m feeling pretty pumped up right now, don’t know about you! Let’s quickly recap what you’ve read: Firstly, procrastination sucks. It’s a pain in the ass. We all get it, and we all struggle with it. I do too, usually more than others. Technology has become a big part in our distraction. While it may seem like a mortal enemy, we can use it to our advantage! Like I’ve said, one of the keys to defeating procrastination is warping your work into enjoyable, relatable and exciting work that you actually WANT to do. It will make the entire process that much easier. You can even incorporate your distractions into your work, to give procrastination another kick in the butt. Use social media to get personal insights into the material you’re researching or writing. Get feedback and ask for tips on how to improve, and see if there are things that people would see a benefit from being included in your work. While things like texting and SnapChat might not be useful for your task at hand (if you’re really creative, it could be somehow!) by using other distractions in your work, you will have much more interest in fulfilling your objectives and will not even be enticed to text other people.

As a general conclusion, I can’t believe that I just wrote this much in forty minutes. I have class early tomorrow, so I should actually read this again to get myself away from procrastination. Anyways, I hope that you found this mess of an experience insightful and that you can go on and form a concrete, solid action plan that caters to your needs for the future! You are a Procrastiknight, and you are ready to conquer the world!

… One paper at a time. It’s a start, anyways!