The thing with procrastinating is that your time still has to appear to be productive, where in fact your time procrastinating should be as unproductive as possible, or at least diverting you from more productive things. This blog entry for example is not being productive, other than as exercise for my writing muscles. I’m not entirely sure where writing muscles are located, as I’ve yet to exercise mine enough for them to ache the next day. A blog entry isn’t enough exercise obviously – maybe an essay would break a small sweat, a dissertation would be a little straining and a thesis would leave me quite fatigued. A novel would probably wipe me out completely. I’m in training at the moment – writing a blog is a bit like pilates. I’m aiming to write a novel if I can ever avoid procrastinating for long enough.
I have tax returns to do, a room to tidy, a change of career to consider, people to write to and even people to talk to, but a propensity for procrastination along with access to the Internet is a fatal combination. Again and again, I’ve awakened from a catatonic stupor to realise that three hours have passed and all I have done is listen to a podcast, put a photo on Flickr, chat to a friend on MSN, download some software, install the software, remove the software after realising it wasn’t very good, change my desktop wallpaper, look on Flickr to see if anyone commented on my photo, chat to another friend on MSN, listen to another podcast, go looking for new podcasts to listen to, write an e-mail, folderise my latest MP3s, comment on a photo on Flickr, discover a new band, and write a blog entr…
Shit. It just happened again.
And we wonder why our employers get upset about us using the Internet…
Procrastination is indeed a delicate art which i, like you, have mastered with uncanny perfection. This comment for exmple. I could actually be earning a living, but instead i choose to sing your praises for a fabulous post rather close to my heart (“,) Ok i’ll bugger off now… *sigh*
and then i further procrastinate as i notice my typos in the previous comment and decide to fix the wrongs. So without much further ado (oh the irony) here with exmple correctly spelt: E-X-A-M-P-L-E.
oh. and by the way. i loved your pics – i’ve added you as a flickr contact