May He Rest Peacefully
Hello.
My name is Chris, and I am a procrastinator.
All my life I've had this problem, this inability to take the first step into the ocean of work. There is a crevice in my mind between intention and action. There is no one to blame but myself, and I can very clearly see the problem, see the massive consequences, but I cannot stop my instinct to delay and delay and delay. If there was a sport revolving around the ability to procrastinate(which I admit is an entirely preposterous idea) then I am entirely convinced I would be an All-American, if not a full-on pro.
It is fair to say I’m whining about something that I can probably fix, eventually, and it would be pretty spot-on to say the time spent writing this essay would be better spent on thinking of ways to actually fix the problem, but where is the fun in that?
Procrastination is the combination of laziness, negligence, lack of self-regulation, a selective attention span, and a slightly anarchist suspicion of school, mostly involving the doubt that there is any personal gain to be had from writing an essay about the stunning allegories used when describing a deranged fictional fireman killing his fictional boss with a fictional flamethrower. It also involves the slight inability to take full responsibility, as seen just now when I blamed Ray Bradbury for all of my problems.
Since procrastination is obviously the the single greatest problem in the universe, let us do the reasonable thing and run it through the five stages grief, most often used after the death of an intimate loved one. Please suspend your disbelief and read under the assumption that the entire concept of workflow was my brother and recently passed away tragically.
Denial
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” — Marcus Aurelius
To deny procrastination as it is happening seems rather ridiculous, let me be the first to admit. To justify your own lack of legitimate progress with an awful excuse, such as, and I say this painfully from experience, the enjoyment I get from doing this (read: literally anything other than the work that is due in four hours and needs to get done) will improve my work later on as I will be well-rested and focused, is plain ludicrous. To glide so quickly over your own stupidity is astoundingly easy, especially when you are searching desperately, despairingly, for a reason to do nothing. Not even a reason, really, as that usually implies some level of legitimate logical thought. Maybe it could be called an unreason.
Denying your own procrastination while you are in the process of procrastinating is figuratively, undoubtedly, metaphorically, hilariously, and perhaps even literally, rock bottom. The lowest of the low of the low.
Do not give in to the false, if entirely preferable, reality that the astounding selection of shows on Netflix is an advanced manipulation on your brain chemistry by the KGB causing your inability to be productive, or that the History Channel special on potential alien intervention into the construction of the Colossus of Rhodes will somehow add that special something to your anecdotes, even if they are “out of this world.”
Anger
“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.” — Gloria Steinem
Once you have staggered past the stage of denial, you will probably be pretty mad. You will be mad at yourself for not having written this essay two weeks ago, you will be mad at your teacher for assigning the essay in the first place, you will be mad at the ‘Related Videos’ section on YouTube for pulling you down the rabbit hole of cats, you will be mad at the government for continuing to fund the school system you have deemed as archaic, you will be mad at Socrates for being the inspiration for your teacher to use the word ‘why’ forty-seven times in the prompt, and you will certainly be mad at the Phoenicians for creating the standardized alphabet, as your ideas could be much more easily understood in small yet detailed pictures engraved into stone.
Chill out, bro. You will hopefully realize very quickly that being angry only helps in two very specific situation; being thrown in the ring with Floyd Mayweather and debating with a news analyst on the entirely non-partisan channels of Fox or MSNBC(If the second example confuses you, you are obviously not an experienced rhetorician, as everyone knows the person who screams the loudest and interrupts the other most often is the one with the correct viewpoint). Writing an essay surprisingly does not fall into these categories so relax, drink some tea, and continue to not actually do any work on that essay that is now due in less than two hours.
If your internet is shut off by Comcast at this point, immediately disregard everything I have just said and proceed to pick up the nearest shatter-able object and throw it at the wall at Mach 7 speed. This will encourage the Comcast engineers to work harder.
Bargaining
“It’s tough to negotiate from a position of weakness.” — Robert Kiyosaki
This is perhaps the most odd of the stages. It generally involves one of two things:
- Bargaining with yourself. This has always confused me, even though I have done it once or twice, but it just doesn't work. It can’t work. It is impossible to successfully bargain with yourself, you know all of your own tricks, you can easily see through your own bluffs, and threats of physical violence don’t really work against yourself. You can attempt to bribe yourself, promising a quick break in exchange for a good paragraph or two, but, at least in my case, I just snatch the reward without doing any work. Your position of weakness is knowing yourself too much, but maybe that's a position of strength as well. I have lost count.
- Bargaining with your Deity of choice, whether that be God, Allah, Zeus, Imperator Julius Caesar, one of the Spice Girls, Sirius Black or any other of the common choices, over finding an actual solution. This can be a plead for nationwide shutdown of the power grid, a snow day in May, or a small, and entirely non-lethal, flu to infect your teacher. Maybe you should just email that teacher instead. Your position of weakness is having literally no control, all you can do is hope and pray. And cry. Definitely can cry.
I know this is supposed to be the natural stages of grief, and each stage represents things that happen to you without you knowing or having any control, but even still I recommend skipping this stage altogether. I don’t really see the point unless you’re actually willing to punch yourself for not living up to the promises you made to yourself, but if you are procrastinating, then you obviously lack the self-discipline to do something like that.
Depression
“I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired.” — Elizabeth Wurtzel
Depression is a very legitimate thing, it is a mental state, perhaps a mental condition, and is the most horrible thing for the mind to fight. Feeling entirely empty inside is in no way a joking matter.
But ‘depression’ due to your inability to write an essay about the deep symbolism of the Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is absolutely a joking matter. It is not a normal kind of depression, it is not so much sadness as it is a comical hopelessness, to look at the clock and see that you’re are almost out of time. You face the eternal question, asked by every generation since the dawn of man: “Is it worth rushing the essay and making the Google Classroom deadline or should I just hand it in one day late?” Many a philosopher has pondered and deliberated on this question, but most agree John Locke answered the question best when he said “What in God’s name is Google Classroom?” We have felt the rippling effect of these wise words to this very day.
You get to the point where you debate dropping out of school and joining the circus. For some period of time, if only three nanoseconds, every single person who has ever lived considers this thought entirely earnestly. This consideration is the single most important event in shaping the future of every young boy and girl in the Sol star system. It is one of the great and unanswerable phenomena of the incredible human psyche.
Acceptance
“For after all, the best thing one can do when it is raining is let it rain.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I legitimately have no idea whether reaching the point of acceptance is a good thing, as this metaphor ran off the tracks a while ago, but let us consider it, together.
The usual benefit of accepting something is the ability to accommodate for your problem, to be at the point where you understand your issue and are able to prepare for it. But procrastination literally is the lack of preparation. I suppose you could probably prepare for the lack of preperation, probably involving setting up a playlist on Spotify and arranging for unhealthy amounts of caffeinated beverage consumption. The problem here is that preparing for procrastination is barely effective, if even that, so acceptance does not actually bring any sort of benefit for you. I guess you may become content in the fact that your work will be rushed and inadequate…? I have no idea if that brings peace of mind, as personally I am, somehow, still confident in my ability to craft the perfect essay in twenty three and a half minutes.
My advice would be to become comfortable in writing extremely quickly in high pressure situations. Some ideas to help:
- Try starving yourself for three days and then cook food. You may only eat the food once you have written a three page essay on Marcus Antonius’ defeat of Mediterranean pirates.
- Try wearing metal for clothing. In a thunderstorm, while standing in a tree. Write an exotic poem on the sound of thunder.
- Rush all of your work for every assignment in all of your classes, this will cause your teachers to have a lower expectation of you and will allow you to do lower quality work.
I mock the mindset of procrastination with the best of intentions. To realize the ridiculous nature of it all, to understand your loss of control, is the first step in pushing through the struggle, the first step toward the light at the end of the tunnel. And that light is a guilt-free binge on season 3 of House of Cards.
Procrastination is such a crippling problem in so many lives, it holds back some of the most bright and creative minds, it kills productivity and creates a culture of unfinished and rushed work. If we don’t make a change, make an effort, do something, then we will be left behind.No matter how well the planning, or how disciplined a person is, a constant guard is needed against the complacency exuded by procrastination. Succumbing to procrastination is dictates the lives of so many, it creates unnecessary stress, fear, pain, frustration. Unnecessary denial, unnecessary anger, unnecessary bargaining, unnecessary depression, and unnecessary acceptance. Do not accept the procrastination, do not take the easy road, give your responsibilities the amount of respect the demand and deserve.
Be excellent in everything you do.
How long can we keep hiding from our own problem? How many rushed, unfinished and awful products needs to be put out before there is a change? When do we stand up and make the change for ourselves? When do we improve? How many awful jokes do I need to make to get my point across?
Das EFX once said, ever so poetically, “Chickity-check yo self before you wreck yo self.” This is probably the single greatest sentence in the entire history of mankind, so consider it deeply.
