—
In order to master some advanced skill, you need to practice it for more than 10 thousand hours. I am officially a master of procrastination. I must have spent many more hours on delaying things I needed to do than hours spent on actually doing them. Procrastination is one of my favorite words because it indicates an existence of an entire phenomenon, which means it’s not just my thing, it’s what we all do.
The question is what we do while procrastinating? What catches our attention so hard and fast that we can’t do what we should? I’ve gathered some of the latest odd things I did instead of doing something useful. Enjoy recognizing yourself.
#1. Series Binge-Watching
We start with a TV series. Every single one of you guys, who are reading this, do that. I blame Netflix for it because before the emergence of online media services, we had to wait a week for another episode of our favorite show. Bad enough that they launch the whole season at once, they allow us to watch any tv-show at any time anywhere! If I fail my career, I’ll sue them.
Stranger Things, Narcos, Mindhunter, American Horror Story – you think these are the titles of tv-shows? No these are the reasons you’ll fail your midterms. And of course you cannot miss watching all the episodes of Jimmy Kimmel where he mocks Matt Damon.
#2. Cleaning Your room, Wardrobe, bookshelf, kitchen or whatever else
The next stage comes when you still cannot start writing your research paper right away, but not because you don’t want to. It’s because you need to prepare a space for your work! You just have to clean your workplace, and this mess in your closet is driving you crazy. So you spend the next three hours sorting out your stuff in a wardrobe by a season, color, and a fabric structure. Good job!
#3. Reading articles and watching video about procrastination
At this stage you start understanding that something went wrong, you realize that you delay your work and you need to do something about it. So you start your research and procrastination is deeply researched, so you have a lot of materials to have fun with. Sooner or later you watch Tim Urban’s lecture on TED and feel kind of a relief because even Tim is an experienced procrastinator and he does the talk on TED, so maybe there is no reason to worry at all?
#4. Watching old tv-shows to remember how you felt about them when you were a kid
It’s when everything goes a bit out of hand. No rational explanation for this one, you just watch Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural like you are 13. You don’t even like the shows but cannot stop your perfect emotional experiment.
#5. Reading your chat history starting from 2008
It’s close to the feeling you have while watching old shows, you don’t like it either. Sometimes it even hurts to read these messages and see what a stupid moron you were as a teenager. But this is a kind of guilty pleasure you cannot resist to. You wrote ‘lol’ and ‘omg’ so often that it’s just, you know, lol and omg.
#6. Looking for your old classmates’ social media pages
You now study in college and can hardly remember your life in high school. But college students and procrastination have a unique, indissoluble bond. So at one moment when you’ve reached the bottom of your newsfeed, you begin to look for your school classmates’ pages on Facebook and Instagram. Wow! Cathy Johnson is pregnant! Maggy Holder gained weight! Luke Short lives in Europe! Josh and Tracy have divorced, while your third-grade love is married and, damn, his wife looks pretty and smart. There were so many people in your class that there is no way you can stop this after four hours browsing. You are here for more!
#7. Watching every Linkin Park music video and live show to cry out all your tears
It’s what I’ve been up to for last three months. I try to convince myself that it’s not exactly a procrastination, it’s a way to pay my tribute to the idol of my teen years. But let’s be honest, if you’ve already spend over 40 hours in total just watching Chester singing and another 40 hours to read all the sad comments about it, something went out of control.
Conclusion
Don’t be hard on yourself, as Tim Urban says in the video below, we all are procrastinators. We all like to feed our Gratification Monkey. Our task is to make the Rational Decision Maker a little bit more resistful. I’ve told you about my ways to set up a mood for sleepless nights before my deadlines. If you recognize your habits on the list or have your special ways to spend time instead of working – you are welcome to share with me in comments.
.
—
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project, please join like-minded individuals in The Good Men Project Premium Community.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Sign up for our Writing Prompts email to receive writing inspiration in your inbox twice per week.
♦◊♦
We have pioneered the largest worldwide conversation about what it means to be a good man in the 21st century. Your support of our work is inspiring and invaluable.
The Good Men Project is an Amazon.com affiliate. If you shop via THIS LINK, we will get a small commission and you will be supporting our Mission while still getting the quality products you would have purchased, anyway! Thank you for your continued support!
—
Photo credit: Getty Images