Sunday, January 29, 2012

Procrastinductivity

[Note: It may be difficult to gauge at what time this post was written. To clear up any confusion, the first part was started around 6:30 pm on January 28th. The second part around 12:30 am on January 29th.]

Wasting time is a talent I possess in huge quantities. Just after writing the title of this post, I took a ten minute break to look at Facebook before returning back to it. But this afternoon, I made it a point to do what I had to do. To finish two big assignments so that I could stop thinking about work in general.

But then I realized that will never ever happen.

It has been two full hours since I printed out my two papers for class this week. Since then, I have spent half of my time eating and the other half wondering when I'm going to ever find the time to do the rest of the work I have left to do.

It's interesting how now matter how much time you devote to your work and how productive you think you are, somehow you can never get past that gnawing feeling of having more left to do.

As soon as I was done working on my politics in the media paper I made the terrible decision of looking at my iCal. Luckily, I was reminded that I have no more enormous assignments to complete this weekend for the coming week. But much to my chagrin, I realized that this weekend I stepped past the point of no return, into the time of year incorrectly titled "midterm season" and actually resembling more of "midterm rest of the quarter."

Because midterms are not in the middle of term, oh no. In the next three weeks I will have two midterm tests, one class presentation and two long papers to write. This wouldn't be so strange, except for the fact that in the following two weeks I will have two final exams and three final papers due.

And the stress only makes me want to waste even more time distracting myself from my commitments, just like I did in the six hours since I started writing this post and now.

It is weird to look at your calendar and realize that you will not have one moment of peace for weeks and weeks. But it is even more strange to look at your calendar and decide that all those in-between times before and after tests, before papers are due or before a presentation is set to be performed are going to be wasted on thinking about the next assignment.

When I set out to do my work, I always intend to finish it. And in the back of my mind, even when I'm spending my "free" time at plays, movies, or on Facebook, I know that everything will be done eventually and that the hour and a half I spend thinking happier thoughts can really only help.

We become so entrenched in our need to get things done. We start weeks ahead so we feel productive and then realize two days before an assignment is due that we actually only wrote an introductory paragraph and the rest of the six pages have to be done with 48 hours to spare.

Productivity is often a ruse so that we can make ourselves feel better about procrastination and inactivity.

But why spend so much time worrying about the inactivity, especially when it is only in those times of distraction that we can truly get away from the work that hounds us?

In the hours and hours of mixed procrastination and productivity it took me to write this blog post, I planned a trip into town for a homework assignment, wrote puns on Facebook, talked about a new crush with my friends and saw a comedy group perform on campus. Maybe that was time wasted, but I think it was time well spent.

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