Procrastination: You aren’t the only one

Somehow when I find out I have three midterms and a paper due next week, my brain decides it’s a good time to go on vacation and leave me on my own to face the wrath of Intro Chem Lab. And so I’m left there crying into the cup of ice cream I’ve stolen from the FFC as I try to think of better excuses not to start studying.

Sometimes I like to walk to Brody to get started with my studying. There are always so many people in there all working hard and doing the things I know I should be doing. The air in there is so heavy from the weight of peer pressure that occasionally I am forced to be productive so as not to get crushed. Hours later I can usually be found still in Brody, hard at work on something due for a class I’m not taking.

Usually, however, I try to just study in my room. By that of course I mean sitting with my computer in front of me but not watching Netflix. That truly is hard work though, because it would be so easy just to open Netflix and enjoy just one more episode. Not doing it is certainly an effort. So yes, surprisingly little gets done inside my room. Actually it would be more accurate to say that very little productivity occurs. However, as a master procrastinator, I have been known to achieve some amazingly useless feats because there is something more important I need to be doing.

Never before has my sock drawer been more organized, my desk cleaner or my microwave shinier as when I was really running out of things to do. As a Hopkins student I rarely have to force myself to do laundry because I simply have to wait until my first paper or really any homework at all. Then poof — my laundry practically does itself. The truly worst part about laundry is that I can only conceivably use it as an excuse once a week, unless I’ve got a midterm in which case my sheets are getting washed too.

With any luck some of you out there are relating to this instead of just laughing at my inability to act like a grown human being. Sometimes it seems as though I am the laziest person in the universe but at other times I suspect that’s just because I’m usually the only one there to witness the backbreaking lengths I go to just so I won’t have to leave my bed (because everyone knows that the day only starts for real once you leave your bed).

So just in case there are any other procrastinators out there really only getting work done when your roommates come in so you have to pretend to be writing something down to prevent them from knowing that you haven’t stopped watching Gossip Girl since the time left that morning to go to the library — know that you aren’t alone.

I too have been known to give up on a day halfway through because I just know the most productive thing I am going to do that day is put food in my mouth. While sometimes it seems like everyone but you is working hard, actually trying to make something of their lives, just know that I am out there somewhere, watching Netflix and thinking about all the work I should be doing.