While I expect that the novelty of publishing a new post every other day will wear off fairly quickly, for now it is a tempting new way to procrastinate and avoid the four term papers and mountains of reading I should be spending my time on. I purposely made no plans for my Saturday afternoon so that I could finally get caught up on all this schoolwork that has been nagging at the back of my mind throughout my week of classes and work (and maybe one write-off day as it fell after my last Pit night before graduation . . sshh), but now I find myself sitting at my computer with no motivation to tackle the pile of books and articles beside me.
This seems to contrast the attitude expressed in my first post of someone who is self-admittedly genuinely excited about her classes, but if you paid attention you would notice that what I love is going to classes and reading literature. What I don't love is reading about different categories of definitions (wow.) and combing through Al Jazeera articles to determine how different Occupy Wall Street activists may conflictingly describe the role of the facilitator in the consensus process. I don't have much patience for the research stage of papers - I much prefer those classes in which the professor wants you to do your own close reading of the text rather than refer to any outside sources at all - but, sadly, all week I have been adding research tasks to my Saturday to-do list, with the thinking that I would have just one bad day overwhelmed with the menial necessities of paper writing before I get started on the fun part. Yet now I sit here with a black cloud looming above me as I curse myself.
I am a master procrastinator. My trick is that I distract myself with things that I really have to do. When I don't want to embark on a fresh and daunting paper, I put in a load of laundry, clean the bathroom, reply to emails, go for a run, paint my nails, wash the dishes - all things that have to get done over the course of my day anyway. The problem is that I'm a bit of a neat freak and a little particular, and so washing the dishes actually means washing the dishes, cleaning the microwave, sweeping the floor, wiping down the counters, rearranging the fridge, taking apart the stove to clean every part of it, and organizing my cupboards. So each small task is actually a big time commitment and extends my procrastination by leaps and bounds. And the whole time I'm getting more and more anxious, knowing that now I'll have to stay up later and get up earlier to continue plugging in all possible combinations of "Jonson," "Penshurst," and "country house" in the MLA Bibliography search engine in hopes of finally miraculously discovering the one article that will be the answer to my prayers (fellow English Lit students all cringed with comprehension).
How to put an end to this procrastination? Well, as you can guess, when my homework for the night consists of reading the scandalous play "The Homecoming" by Harold Pinter and working my way through a slew of Ben Jonson poetry, the sink stays full of dishes for a little longer and the run gets put off. When homework doesn't feel like work, it becomes much more enjoyable and gets completed much quicker. I guess the secret is to try to enjoy it. So I'm going to pour myself a drink (sshh) and get into my sweats, and set myself a challenge: be done in three hours when the night is still young.
PS. Too bad I've deemed this blog to be a form of "productive procrastination" . . . perhaps you actually will be hearing from me this regularly for the rest of semester.
PPS. And yes, painting my nails is an almost daily ritual.
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