Single White Unemployed Female: Procrastination not Always a Problem

I have a procrastination problem.

It’s more serious than merely listing “procrastinating” under my interests on Facebook. It’s not that I’m lazy—well, at least I don’t think so. I’ve always been pretty bad about it, but senior year has magnified it to a ridiculous amount.

I used to think I had left Senioritis behind in high school, but apparently O’Connell High School decided to Fed-Ex it back to me in Fredericksburg.

Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly and YouTube have been a great contributor, since I’ve been able to find episodes of Daria and Freaks and Geeks, as well as all my favorite teen movies of the ’90s.

I’ll try to start my assignments ahead of time by going somewhere inspirational, like a library or Hyperion, hoping that the aroma of roasted beans and caffeine will work like Adderall and I’ll morph into a reading and writing machine.

This never works, and somehow I get distracted. I find a way to sidetrack from my paper, project or exam study session.

Simply getting a song stuck in my head will trigger my procrastination. I’ll start with a paper for Sociolinguistics, and somehow, a strange train of thought begins. I start humming The Smith’s “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now” and end up on the Wikipedia page for Raffi’s song “Bananaphone.”

I feel like the black sheep in the family when it comes to this bad habit. My mom has never been the doing-things-at-the-last-minute type, my dad likes to take care of things as soon as they need to be done and my sister will start and finish things a week before they’re due. I, on the other hand, can’t complete something unless it’s due the next day.

Though it sounds like a curse and a burden, there are some good things that can come out of being a procrastinator. I work much better under the pressure of a deadline, which some professions, like journalism, consider an asset. I always trust my instincts when I write because I don’t have time to second-guess myself.

That all being said, procrastination has a lot more cons than pros. As a result, I’ve made a New Year’s Resolution to not do things at the last minute. I want to know what it’s like to have free time before the big assignment’s due, because I did it ahead of time. I’m going to try to waste my time on YouTube and Netflix after I’ve (gasp!) finished my paper.

By the next Bullet issue, I’ll have a new article due for this column, and I’m going to try to start it this weekend. I’ll probably start on it when I’m on the train to D.C. for my internship. Actually, maybe I’ll start this weekend and go to Hyperion. Wait a sec, it’s my birthday, crap. You know, I have a few hours before deadline, so I’ll crank it out then.