My PhD journey and the art of procrasti-baking

Harper Staples (@HarperStaples) is a third year PhD student at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. In this story, she talks about how she sometimes finds herself procrastinating and baking (or ‘procrastibaking’) in order to buy some more time to tick off tasks from her to-do list.

This story was first published on January 28, 2019, on the FERSA Blog run by graduate students at the Faculty of Education in Cambridge (available here) and has been republished here with permission.

It’s summer 2012. I’m in my last undergraduate year and the pressure is mounting. Finals are approaching and we’ve all taken up residence in the central university library. My flatmate is living on takeaways and I can’t remember the last time I did any laundry. I’ve even seen one person asleep behind a set of shelves next to a half-eaten pizza. This is a pivotal moment in my academic life, although not in the way you might assume. Yes, these exams are important, but even more than this, this is the summer that saw me become a fully-fledged member of the Procrastinators Anonymous.

Yes, that’s right, I’m comfortable enough to admit it now.

I am a procrastinator.

“Ok, well, so what?” I imagine similar sentiments might be occurring to you right now. Maybe even, “well so am I.” I think it’s a rare breed of person that has never experienced the amazing (and often exceptionally creative) lengths we are sometimes capable of taking to avoid doing what we should actually be doing. For my part, I have honed expert procrastination skills over the years, but the most recent talent I’ve developed is that of procrastibaking. Biscuits, cakes, pies; when confronted with a deadline, I’ve made ’em all. I’ve even indulged, once or twice, in what I like to call “experimental procrastibaking.” This is when you not only lack the correct ingredients to make that cake, tart or pastry, but you also lack the motivation to go out and buy those correct ingredients, so you mix a random assortment of items together and hope it all comes out ok. A defining moment on my experimental procrastibaking journey so far: not having eggs, butter or sugar in the cupboard and still feeling confident that I would be able to create an apple crumble.

Interesting, right? Want to know more about Harper’s PhD journey and the art of procrasti-baking? Read her full story here.