Have some free time before you have to be somewhere? Isn’t it just great, knowing you can relax and chill for a while. But how often does that sense of time get away from you until you find yourself running late because you thought you had so much free time that you wasted it all and are behind schedule. That is over-dicking! The idea that you are now late because you had so much time and didn’t plan accordingly. Over-dick originates from the movie, Set It Up, a Netflix rom-com from their recent Summer of Love campaign. But really just because they are the first to put a name to it, doesn’t mean we haven’t already been doing it for years.
I for one have over-dicked it many, many times partially due to my status as a college student and partly because of my ability to procrastinate. Having a schedule in which classes are hours apart results in opportunities galore for me to over-dick it like a pro. Add in my ability to procrastinate, and I become someone who has a bad habit of over-dicking it. Like the time I started an Asian drama series between my afternoon class and night class. I was all ready to go to my class; readings all done, my backpack ready to go, so why not? The answer is that Asian dramas should only be started when one can sink into a state of oblivion to the outside world for at least 36 hours. I got so hooked on the show, Descendents of the Sun, that I lost all track of time and only realized how late it was because of how dark it had gotten outside. My story is not one that people should attempt to replicate; it should just be taken as a warning to all the dangers of starting an Asian drama when unprepared for the full consequences.
So how do you avoid falling into this mental mindwarp of believing you have all the time in the world until your next thing, when in reality you have a set amount of hours before the clock runs out? You could set the alarm or a reminder so that you are alerted to just how much time has passed. This is probably the best option and most realistic in terms of successfully helping you. Or, you could have fun shifts, where you do something fun or leisurely for a specific amount of time and then do something productive. For example, I get out of back-to-back classes and am hungry cause it’s lunchtime. I use the time while I am eating as my leisure time, I watch one episode of TV (No Asian dramas, because you can’t just watch one!). When the episode and meal are over, I do what needs to be done. Whether that is cleaning, doing some laundry, working on a paper, or sloshing through some readings, I do it. Usually, I manage to check off a few things from my to-do list before my next class or meeting, and this way I don’t sink into the quicksand-like trap of over-dicking. Use whatever works for you, and if you do over-dick it, well I hope you are wearing tennis shoes, cause running in flip-flops is not fun.