Procrastination? Or just high-level multi-tasking.
8pm, a little screen pops up on my Blackberry followed by a series of vibrations. The little red beacon starts flashing demandingly. Excited I think to myself, “ooh, do I have a message?”
A click on the touchpad quickly tells me no. It’s just a reminder I put in my diary, so that I procrastinate less and get on with the job on hand, writing. I had read somewhere before that if you try to make a routine out of things, you’re less likely to procrastinate so that was my planned strategy.
I proceeded to the computer, sat down, opened my browser and then checked my email; then my Facebook; then my twitter account… A good 20 minutes later I still haven’t embarked on the task that my well-meaning intentions have begged me to do, write. The sad fact is that, when your livelihood depends on it, procrastination really isn’t a good plan.
So then I found myself Googling procrastination. Actually it was ‘procrastination research’ so at least I could tell myself that I was doing some research into something I might want to write about. I had originally intended to write something on a recent journey from Tarifa to Lagos (to anyone interested, that little gem is still available for commission by the way) but that has clearly gone out of the window.
The first page I come to is some kind of Canadian website. A quick look at the design and content tells me it’s not very promising. I was especially turned off by the huge reading list, apparently all topical research on the subject. That is far too much investigation for my liking and more on par with a University essay than small musings. Although it did give me a name to play with, Steel.
After a little light digging I found another Canadian website, this time apparently from the University of Calgary. It actually had most of the same information as the first website except this one had better design, and it was endorsed to a degree by this Steel guy. There I found a quiz which was supposed to tell me how much I procrastinated. Of course if they had recorded the amount of time it took me to finish it then they could probably give a more accurate measurement of my rate of procrastination. After 90 odd questions, it finally gave me an answer.
They say that the reasons why you procrastinate can range everywhere between a task being too easy or too hard to you don’t have enough time. Or maybe you just plain don’t want to.
Anyway, I was a moderate procrastinator. Apparently Steel’s main bit of research took 10 years to complete so I was already in a better position. This pleased me somewhat so I proceeded to eat a couple of dates, read the Guardian. Oh, and write this. Maybe it was just high-level multi-tasking all along.
