Procrastination cat is not amused

For any of you that don't already use Gmail, or even for all of you that do, here's a video you should watch:

Gmail Theatre

I love it! Puppets make me smile.

I believe my levels of procrastination recently reached an all-time high. Last spring, I attended a library-related weekend workshop, worth one credit hour. I didn't really need that one credit hour, but the workshop sounded interesting. I really enjoyed it, but once I came back I put off starting the post-assignment. The assignment was just a 5-7 page paper - nothing fancy, nothing that difficult, nothing I shouldn't have been able to churn out in an hour or two. But, being the ridiculous master of procrastination that I am, and given that the deadline for the paper was arbitrary (the instructor gave a date for the deadline, but later said it didn't matter when she got it), I put the paper off until after finals. Surely, I would have plenty of time afterwards to write it up and send it off - at least that's what I told myself.

Note that this was last March. Almost an entire year ago.

"So," you're probably wondering, "when did you write the paper?" Well let's see... I took three classes over the summer, so I didn't make time to write it then. Fall started up almost immediately, and that led into all kinds of family issues by year's end, so I didn't write it then. During these months, I had started the paper and added to it several times, so it wasn't as if I ignored it completely. However, it wasn't until last week - Thursday night - that I finally just forced myself to go to a computer lab and write the damn paper. I sent it to the instructor, tail between my legs, hoping that she would accept it. She did (thank you thank you thank you), and I would have screamed in pure joy if it hadn't been 8am when I got her email response.

The moral of this whole story is this: Procrastination only works when you actually finish the thing you're putting off. And in no way was this a successful procrastination attempt. This paper plagued my mind for months, and each time I thought about doing it, I was overwhelmed with the realization that it was so severely overdue that I couldn't possibly think of any logical reason why I hadn't finished it. As time went on, working on it became an increasingly harder and daunting task. Surprisingly enough, I was actually pretty happy with the end result, so I guess that's a good thing? Eh.

Never again, my friends. Never again.

It's a good thing I'm not like this at work. When I'm there, I'm so focused and driven. And organized! God, I wish I could be that organized at home. I'm not sure why that is - aren't organized people supposed to be organized in ALL aspects of their life? I'm creative, I problem-solve, I get things done quickly - too bad that doesn't translate very well into my personal life. I guess that's a goal to strive for. At least, for now, my mind is free to focus on other things. And I promise I'm going back to my normal, "healthy" levels of procrastination.

2 Responses to "Procrastination cat is not amused"

Chaser responded on 2/18/2007 4:13 PM #

Back during fall semester (let's say November) I checked out 3 books from the Westerville library to help me with some reference questions. I kind of forgot about them for a while, and when I got an overdue notice I went to the website to renew them...but then I realized that I don't know my card number, and I was too lazy to get up and find the card so I could renew the books. They continued to sit around my house, getting more and more overdue...sometimes I would think about taking them back, but it seemed so ridiculous to take them back after all that time. It was easier to just pretend they were not there. But they were...and they still are. I just got my "you are about to be reported to Unique" letter, so hopefully I will get them back soon. Wish me luck.

Erica responded on 2/18/2007 11:23 PM #

Yeah... you should probably get those back. Of course, that's not saying much coming from me. Not that Unique can do much (for a while at least) but you can save yourself the extra fee at least. Hey, maybe I'll go with you to the library and get myself a card. I've been meaning to do that anyways.