With this blog having now served its original purpose of
being the platform for my Author Studies homework, I have found myself missing
the almost therapeutic process of confining random ideas to a needless
word-limit, and posting them on the internet for a limited viewership. Which
perhaps sheds some light on why, in his busy hour, I find myself once more
drawn to it…but with a less productive purpose in mind.
Procrastination. It is an acute art, where by you put off a
boring or trying task by trying to distract yourself with other boring tasks.
No other time on earth do people actively seek out the mundane as quickly as
when someone is procrastinating. Which surely means that procrastination
actually must be a time which produces the greatest results – think of all
those times when you’ve cleaned the house, paired your socks and taken the dog
for a three mile walk to avoid doing your tax? Or the times when, rather than
face a brain-numbing essay, you’ve started that book you couldn’t get down on
paper, or written a song which previously got stuck in your throat.
People view procrastination as sort of parasite that burrows
deep down and settles into your psyche where it inevitably turns your
productive brain to mush, but I find it to be total opposite. I do my best work
when I’m procrastinating. I force myself over bridges and blocks which – had I
had something interesting to do – I would have never bothered to fight over. Procrastination
is the metaphorical kick in the arse that tells you that you would much rather
be fighting a horde of angry Vikings off single handily with a wooden spoon than
trying and finish your final draft. It’s like internal hypnosis where, once you’ve
broken free and have started on the task that you so diligently tried to put off,
you realise that you’ve been screwing with yourself. Because really – let’s be
honest, it wasn’t that hard or boring to begin with, but you had time and if
you had finished it early none of the other shit in the house would get done.
Therefore, I conclude and uphold that procrastination is a
devious and magical art, and I shall not be convinced otherwise. I shall
continue to procrastinate for as long as I conceivably can, and shall be the
better off for it.
Of course that might just be procrastination talk…
