Freshman Fireside: Procrastination

Procrastination sucks and it would be a bold faced lie if I said I never did it. I procrastinated writing this article that you’re reading. Granted I had no idea what to write about until I realized I was procrastinating but it still counts.

The worst part about this time of the year is that summer is within our grasp. High temperatures spouting up every other week and teachers saying, “So I guess all we have left is this, this and this.” At the beginning of the semester this wasn’t a problem. I used to sit down and do homework days before it was due. Now the night before class I’m doing all of the work that I should have been working on a week ago.

It isn’t just work that I’m procrastinating on either. Two of my final exams are on the same day at the same time. I’ve been thinking about doing something about it for a few weeks but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

I blame Netflix. Every episode of Law and Order available for me to watch instantly? Ahh, who needs work.

The only answer now is to work on a fool-proof way to avoid procrastinating. And no it doesn’t involve cancelling Netflix (blasphemy!).

I could lock myself in a room with nothing but my textbooks and a computer. But then again that would send me back to Netflix.

I could lock myself in a room with nothing but my textbooks and a computer without Internet. But then I wouldn’t be able to use Wikipedia to write my papers. Uh, or should I say scholarly online sources pertaining to my topic. Yeah, that’s what I meant.

This is obviously the great, unanswered struggle of college. To work or not to work. That is the question.  There’s still three more years of this scuffle.  Three more years of coming up with some meaningless task to complete instead of doing my real work. Three more years of scrubbing my bathroom walls to avoid reading a chapter in a textbook. Three more years of rearranging my closet so I don’t have to write papers.

No amount of organization, scheduling and dedication can help this turmoil be avoided. No matter how many times you say, “I’ll do that tonight” you never will.  Unless it is due tomorrow. Then you might do it tonight.

All I know is, I don’t want to deal with this every year until I graduate. I should come up with a comprehensive plan to destroy procrastination right now. A plan equipped with a PowerPoint, 10 page paper and a speech to provide audiences with understanding of my detailed plan. And luckily doing that means I don’t have to do my real work.

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Category: Columns, Freshman Fireside, Niner Times, Opinion