The Procrastination of our Generation

So what is procrastination?

Hesistantly looking over to my Macquarie Dictionary, I quickly run a search on dictionary.com for an adequate description.

procrastinate:

• To put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness
• To postpone or delay needlessly

So it's not quite like delaying something based upon exemplary parameters, say both your arms are broken and your house burnt down but rather quite the opposite. It seems preferable to watch the grass grow for a couple of hours.

Some people I know follow procrastination religiously. Some just use it once in a while just to take a time off. For me? It's a disease buried so deep in my core, it's become my lifestyle. It can't be helped.

Example:

There's an assignment. Worth 20% of your core. It's straight forward mickey mouse questions BUT require you paying attention in class and doing some research on the side. Already that becomes a problem. You know for a fact and you've been told countless of times, if you set aside dedicated time just once a week you could be well on your way to an A+. But it's due 1 month from now. Now there's the other problem. 1 month turns to fortnight, fortnight turns to 3 days, then all of a sudden it's due tomorrow and you haven't done shit but write the title of the assignment.

On a piece of paper.
A piece of paper you can't find now.
Fuck.

You sit down and think. What? WHAT? In respect to your New Year's Resolution, you were going to organize your time management skills accordingly and never have to regret handing in a half-assed project. Well that just went to shit didn't it?

It's 7am on the day before it's due. You calculate it's due 26 hours from now. Plenty of time. So you go out, wander the streets, play some games, go to work, sit down and catch up with an old friend, watch some TV, sleep, instant message, have sex with an inanimate object and pick up the phone and fart in the microphone at all the people with names from G-L. Before you know it, it's 4am and still you have nothing to show. So what now? You re-evaluate your predicament and sit down and finish it with 2 minutes to spare.

That's me. Back in high school that was still plausible. Now that I am in university. Not so plausible. I've slightly changed my wiley ways and now manage to slip my assignments just in time. My mediocre approach to university doesn't reap any great benefits however, it does allow me to well.. actually, no. No benefits. We have all been there, don't deny it. But there are people who even procrastinate on procrastinating and you end up further delayed from the above situation. And that, my dear friends, is where procrastination can only get worse.

It's 4am. It's due 9am. That gives you roughly 5 hours to do it. You say to yourself, you can do it in 2. You take a nap and all goes well. Until you wake up and you realize you are late for univeristy and you still haven't done jack all. Awesome?

Once I handed in one of my projects early but only by coincidence. You see I thought I was looking forward to a 20% deduction but it turns out I read the due date wrong and I handed it a whole week earlier than I should have. Go figure. Confusion has its positives. Sometimes.

Is there a cure? Of course. The problem though, in order to be cured, it would require a person to not be procrastinating. So that brings us back at square one. Perhaps corporal punishment or public hangings would help?

But who knows? There are the fair few who do get their work done. Then again, those fair few aren't the ones who are reading this at 4am in the morning thinking how they should approach their assignment let alone writing a column about procrastination.