I Can't Even Commit to Procrastination

In a week where I thought I was going to be pushed to my limits, I've actually managed to find an awful lot of time to do just about nothing. I had my first piece of assessed work on Monday, the knock-on affect of which was that I didn't get much work other than the preparation for that done last week. I was left with a lot of lecture notes to copy out and even more reading to catch up on so I thought that this week was going to be pretty tricky. As it turns out I have been able to find a fair amount of time to do the square root of squat. I should point out that all bar one of my lectures now have been copied out and I have managed to get a little bit of the reading done this week but not nearly as much as I planned to do. It seems that any plan that you make as a student gets quickly brushed aside in place of other 'important' things like reloading Facebook every couple of minutes. The funny thing is that I found myself doing just that today when I had planned to get all of my reading done, but this time I couldn't even commit myself to procrastination. Needless to say it was a spectacular moment for me because in that split second I realised that I might as well still be asleep!

I'll explain the situation to you so that you can picture this marvelous moment in your head. I got back from my lecture this morning and sat down at my desk with a cup of coffee and the best intentions to get some solid work done - didn't happen. The lure of luncheon was much to great for me to fight against and so I toddled out of my room to the kitchen for some grilled cheese (which I've had for lunch every day this week I might add as well). Once I had made the kitchen smell 'cheese-and-toasty' I lumbered back to my computer armed with another, even stronger cup of coffee (plus a full thermos of the stuff), with the intention of sitting back and getting some quality textbook reading under my belt. The only thing I got under my belt was all of that coffee and the subsequent realisation from further down that it needed out - basically I took a toilet break from drinking coffee. So with my bladder empty and my eyes wide open I finally read about error in my contract textbook - riveting - and then I read a little bit about the first statutes in Roman Law - can't recommend it highly enough. I decided it was time to stop beating about the bush and commit myself to procrastination.

What happened next was a funny thing to say the least. I've had a fair bit of experience in the area of doing what I'm not supposed to be doing, but today really topped that. I started a good book on Monday night so I thought I would do something constructive with my lack of motivation to study and read for a bit; I didn't even have to pick up the book before I realised that this wasn't going to happen. The I moved onto the next thing which was the Internet. Now the web is a place of marvel and wonder as you'll know - a procrastinator's dream if you will. Now I'm not talking about the rookie approach to Internet time wasting that I mentioned earlier (that of course being the dull hours wasted on Facebook), no I decided to pick up something else; something more refined. So I headed to BBC iPlayer in search of something that would not constitute a waste of my time. I stumbled across a radio documentary about Elvis Costello (whose music I am completely obsessed with at the moment) so I decided I would listen to that. When I saw that this was going to take me an hour and a half I stalled a little bit. This was the moment when I realised that I couldn't even commit myself to something that I really shouldn't have been doing. I actually laughed at myself out loud (yes I 'lolled') and went ahead and pressed 'play'. I just found it ironic that I wasn't able to find the energy, even after all that caffeine, to listen to something that ultimately I found to be very interesting.

Anyway I seem to remember saying that I would only post on a Sunday from now on because I would be just too busy during the week, and yet here we are again. I don't think I'll ever get to the stage where I will be able to study for 7 or 8 hours a day without having a deadline to work with. I think the problem with this week is that after my assessed work on Monday I realised that I didn't have to hand in another essay for a couple of weeks and the rest of my tutorial work didn't require much of my time so I really had nothing pressing to get done. I will have to learn that even though I have nothing to submit, I still have a lot of work to do.

I think that most people reading this will be in a very similar boat to me and will have sympathy with my inability to even commit to procrastinating. Maybe one day someone will come up with a cure for it but for now I have a great idea: could someone please turn off Facebook for me?

Thanks again for reading, now get back to 'liking' and 'poking' you lot,


Martin