Procrastination…

You know that thank you note you’re supposed to write, that errand you’re supposed to run, that one, tiny simple task that for whatever reason, you can’t get yourself to do. It stares you in the face every morning and taunts you.

I’m really easy but you can’t do me. I’m really easy but you can’t do me. Nanny nanny billygoat. Na Na Na Na Na.

And the longer we put it off the worse we feel about ourselves. It becomes this lingering cloud that blocks out our happiness sun with guilt and self loathing.

“I’m going to start today,” I tell myself.

The day passes. I didn’t start.

“Okay, tomorrow is a new day, a clean slate. Tomorrow is the day I go to the post office to mail the thank you note for Aunt Edna that has been sitting on my kitchen table for three months.”

Nope. Today I’m gonna scroll Facebook or read my third news story this morning about DNC leaked emails.

Procrastination is insane. I understand why we procrastinate when it comes to hard tasks — namely because they are hard and we don’t want to do them. But why do we procrastinate when it comes to simple tasks? It’s completely illogical. Just mail the stupid thank you note already!

For the first three weeks of this trip I was using an ipad + detachable keyboard to write these Medium posts. And it was working pretty nicely. But then the battery died on the keyboard. Instead of buying a new cable to recharge the battery, I started writing all these posts on my phone. It was crazy. some of these posts have been really (read: unnecessarily) long and I was typing them with my thumbs. Who does that? What is wrong with me?? Just buy the stupid cable.

This past week I finally bought the cable.

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I feel like a human again.

You’d think that when you are traveling and you have nothing but free time, you’d stop procrastinating. It turns out, that’s not the case.

Procrastination is weird. I wish I had an answer but I don’t.

PS: if you were reading this post as a way to procrastinate, and it was either too short or too unsatisfying and now you’re feeling bummed because you need to do real work, fret not comrad. Here is an excellent post on procrastination from Tim Urban’s Wait But Why.

PPS: If you’re a chronic procrastinator but not yet a Wait But Why reader, check out the archives where there is a whole treasure trove of procrastination material. It’s all excellent. Probably one of the best blogs on the Internet. Fermi’s paradox and the AI posts are particularly great. You’ll thank me later, but just in case you never get around to mailing that thank you note, don’t worry about it. I understand and you’re welcome.