I like to think procrastination is something that we all struggle with; but why is this a bad thing? To procrastinate is to both be aware of what is on your plate and also ignore the fact, put it to one side, back in the microwave. It is an art. I think I may be a black belt. Maybe you are too…
The scenario usually occurs as follows. My task: a formative assignment. Nothing too difficult, 500 words – it isn’t obligatory. I’m doing this off my own back to get some super informative feedback from my lecturer. If I’m really focused this will take no longer than an intense two or three hours. The ideas don’t have to be fully formed, we’re at the cement mixing stage, foundations are yet to be laid. Rituals are performed, coffee is plunged. I let the steam from the flask diffuse through my nostrils. The first sip is immaculate. I used to mock my parents for their caffeine addiction – no longer, I totally get it. It’s the sophistication of it more than anything. The process. The niche selection all the way from Java, the bitterness, the community. More than anything it is the anticipation of heightened alertness. Stimulants like these require some time to kick in properly, so let’s wait for that to happen.
I’m feeling good, just right, I’m comfortable, I’m dressed. Half the battle is won. Now, to work! But what’s this? All of a sudden, this carpet is looking really dirty. In fact, this room, my room, is in a bit of a state. How have I let it come to this? I’m not a messy person, but I’m seeing things, things which irritate me. For example, I’ve accumulated a number of mugs on my windowsill. There are also some clothes which have been trodden underfoot. Books have gone astray from their piles. A small mountain of dirty laundry which has been stoically holding out for too long. This really needs sorting out. This is important stuff. Your environment has to be right before you can work properly. Organisation is a priority. Order, rather. Naturally this snowballs.
If it were to be observed, which subconsciously it is, this thing would be excruciating to watch. It’s like when you’ve zoned out of a conversation, a lecture, a reading, and you realise that you know you’ve zoned out but continue regardless. Participatory inertia forms a sort of veil beneath which your prefrontal cortex does battle with itself every day. The whole thing represents the animal phenomena of one of those low-budget Attenboroughs. Instead of surveying a verdant savanna, he is camped outside my doll’s house habitat of a flat. He peers in with his long lens at this late capitalist primate, lambasting itself while fidgeting with a black box, undergoing existential crises, occasionally picking its nose. Tidying up some clothes, books, mugs becomes a productive enterprise. I’m still doing something good, I’m still on top of this. The writing can wait half an hour.
On entering the kitchen to wash up the mugs I realise that this room is also grossly out of order. It has gone too far. My flatmates are doing their best to recreate the kitchen sink from Withnail and I; a monster lurks beneath the scraps. The side, hob, sink are separate conflict zones within a complex ecosystem. Bacteria flourishes in half empty pesto jars, oily surfaces, pans, the remains of someone’s porridge, an attempt at soup abandoned, plates and bowls resembling a brutalised still life piece. The whole thing constitutes a nihilism that requires action. I think I’d better do the right thing. No one can live like this, can they? I’ll be the bigger person and sort it out. From nothing – a new purpose. Living intentionally means washing up is a meaningful thing. In reality, the pesto stimulus foreshadows a more pressing question: what do I have left in the fridge, what is there to eat? It appears some milk and half a bag of kimchi. Better go to the shops. Restock.
By this stage, the coffee magic is wearing off. The brain no longer simmers with dopamine. I’m left only with its diuretic effects. I’m on my way to get some food. I might go to the climbing gym too, I haven’t done that in a while. Need to do some exercise, get the heart rate up, self-care, some ‘me time’. Need to ward off that black dog, seasonal depression, that lumbering labrador who humps my leg beyond the darkness of 4pm. The laptop has been well and truly deserted.
So, then. We can see how this thing comes about, how it is justified and put into effect. Other, more desperate, methods are available. Reorganising your desk draws, perhaps a bit of DIY on the one that won’t close properly (it still doesn’t). Rationalising cables, colour-coding socks, hoovering, Wikipedia deep dives (you’re still learning stuff), talking head documentaries, listening to podcasts, thinking of ideas for podcasts, online chess, contacting siblings to whine about your life, writing a piece for your student paper on the positives to take from procrastination. There is a logic to this performance. As I mentioned earlier, this is still productive.
Alas, the formative Word Document consists of the word ‘the’, but there is still time. We shouldn’t interpret procrastination as a bad thing. It is true that it takes more time to get important things done but your brain reassesses priorities with such creativity that the whole thing constitutes something of an ecstatic experience; something that should be valued in and of itself. If the highest art is improving the quality of the day I think procrastination serves this purpose. Sometime in the distant future, it will be an Olympic event held in glass portacabin things. The task? Writing formatives; competitors vying to not compete, looking for things in the stadium to clean, clutter to rearrange, offloading woes to stewards and referees.
