Dev An's Art of Procrastination

So you have come to learn from the master, young grasshopper? Then let us begin.

The art of procrastination is a manifold path - it is not simply putting things off indefinitely with the constant chant "I will" - as so exquisitely personified by Jase in his younger, less responsible years. That is simple laziness, and while there is indeed a certain charm to leaving everything until someone is actually shouting at you (at least then there's someone to help you go through the piles across your desk) there is an unfortunate and inherent danger in that.

Firstly, you may get a reputation for not doing the work (not exactly a good thing in employment). Secondly in some areas - college being a favourite - noone actually cares of you do the work or not.

You just don't get any marks if you leave it too late.

The dictionary has Procrastination as:

Pro‧cras‧ti‧nate 
1. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.
2. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

But the Art is so much more than that. It is leaving the work for later, yes - but doing it at the eleventh hour (and fifty ninth minute in some cases), just in time to hand it in. Ideally, noone should even know you're doing it, you just inexplicably always seem to have more free time than anyone else.

Funny, that.

Of course, no guesstimation is perfect and sometimes there just isn't any way around a certain amount of research - especially if you don't actually read the question before the day it's due. If anyone tries to tell you the Art is about avoiding hard work, they seriously need to think again. While you haven't been wrestling with the assessments for as long as they have, have they ever tried putting together a 3000-word report in the three hours before it was due, having had minimal sleep the night before (while preparing a different assignment, also due that day)? Incidentally No-Doze on an empty stomach is officially a Bad Idea.

Apparently I was acting like I was high. Can't imagine why.

All too many times, procrastination seems to be no more than a choice between stress early and confidence later or relaxation early and stress at the last minute. Which makes it all the more important that if you're planning to put things off you keep a very close eye on the calendar.

Or keep an industrial-sized pot of coffee behind the textbooks on your shelves (all my roomies are as big a coffee-fiend as I am). And now I've gone and told them where it is. Hang on a sec.

The other big thing to fight is distraction. If you're going to do multiple assessments in a short time - say, hypothetically, one fifteen minutes from the time of writing and another two for Friday - then you can't afford to go off and do something else that might delay your task any later. The due-date is looming over you after all.

So make sure you avoid "just one more" phone call (guilty), "just checking my email" (guilty) and above all, making a blog-post "just while I'm on the computer anyway" (since you're reading this, presumably guilty). Or you too will enjoy the delights of sidling innocently into class twenty minutes late, doing your best to pretend it has nothing to do with the assignment due that tute.

Nope, nothing at all...

NB: Assignments may be devouring me for the rest of this week, so I'll likely be a little sparse on posts and quotes until Friday evening, Aussie-time.

Wish me luck?