I have always envied the people that know how to manage their time. For me, it was never something that I was able to do efficiently. Yes, I’ve made the occasional to-do list (and the satisfaction of checking something off of a to-do list is incomparable, I must admit), but for the most part I find myself struggling with assignments that were due three weeks ago.
They say that admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery (no idea what the second step is, I’ll research it tomorrow). Here are six things you’ve experienced if you’re also a procrastinator.
1. You have a research paper due tomorrow. You have the research, just no paper. All of a sudden your room starts looking kind of dirty…
Your roommate has been subtly hinting at you that your side of the room is really starting to look a little nasty. You know she’s right but you’ve been putting it off just because you’ve had so many other things to do…like watch Netflix and read Buzzfeed articles.
But you know, now that you’ve been sitting here for a while trying to pull this research paper together, her comments really start to hit home. It’s time you change your lifestyle. You systematically create an organization system for your desk drawers and color code your closet. You do two loads of laundry and dust off everything that you can reach. The windows looked pretty gross too, so you ran to the closest convenience store to buy some Windex and wiped those off too.
Your roommate comes home and she’s ecstatic. You’re exhausted because you still have twenty pages to write.
2. Three pages in you start getting really, really hungry. You decide to go get some food.
All the way across campus…you live in Danielsen and take the shuttle to West.
But their menu looked the best, plus you’ve been dying to see your friend that lives in Sleeper. Plus it’s not even that cold out tonight. This is a rare occurrence and needs to be celebrated. Your paper can wait just a little bit.
3. Wait…it really is nice out. Why not go for a walk?
The river is pretty beautiful covered in snow. Plus, we should all be rejoicing because it’s above freezing outside. Instead of walking down Baystate Road, why not walk down the Esplanade? A little bit of exercise will definitely get the blood to your brain flowing and the fresh air will be just as good for you. You convince yourself that this is definitely an awesome idea and you’ll be able to bang out the rest of your paper as soon as you get back to your laptop.
4. You realize that you have a missed call from mom…from three days ago.
Yeah, you’ve texted a couple times since then, but what ever did she call about? Who knows? You don’t. That’s why you give her a call to make sure everything’s okay.
It turns out everything’s just fine but you decide that you’re in a talkative mood so you tell her all about the paper you’re “writing”. She thinks it’s a pretty boring topic (I mean, you don’t blame her) so she starts complaining to you about how her best friend skipped out on their spin class yesterday. Ugh, what a flake! This suddenly seems like the most important issue in your life and you spend a good hour and a half discussing the values of friendship with your mom who’s extremely let down.
5. Alright, it’s time to get serious. This paper isn’t that boring. It’s actually really interesting.
Like really, really interesting.
All of a sudden, you need to know more. You start doing some off the record research because this topic that you’ve never cared about in your life is all of a sudden so much more interesting than writing an actual paper on it.
You’re writing a paper about Theodore Roosevelt and after an hour of intensive research you know everything from what his favorite color was to what side of the bed he preferred to sleep on. You were so splendidly shocked when you found out the teddy bear was named after him that you tweeted about it and your newfound respect for all things Theodore Roosevelt.
If one former president is this interesting, imagine how interesting all of them are!
You start to do some more intensive research. Martin van Buren and William Henry Harrison? They were presidents? Who knew!
You decide to read dozens of articles on the Petticoat Affair and the Credit Mobilier Scandal and insist that those corruptions are just as notable as the Watergate and Lewinsky hiccups.
6. It’s 2 AM. Your paper is due at noon. This isn’t okay.
Alright, time to get serious. Now that you know the ABC’s of the United States government you can definitely write a research paper about one president. You stay up until six to finish writing, proofreading, and editing it. It was a long labor, but the results end up being pretty impressive, you do say so yourself. You promise yourself that next time you’ll be done long before the due date and you’ll even make time to schedule in a couple of trips to go to the writing center in pursuance of that perfect grade. Right.