Procrastination never mattered so much as it does when you’re working toward something that’s actually worth it.
It’s an exhausted, tiresome subject, I know. But I’m not writing to tell you how to overcome procrastination. Frankly, I don’t think that will work for you. I’m writing to tell you why you should overcome it, in hopes that it will snap you into figuring out your own game-faced-Katniss-style-arrow-shooting kind of way to combat it.
In my experience, there are three crucial myths we convince ourselves into believing that enable us to put off the important things we need to do — and I’m going to shoot them down right here and now with a little bit of logic and my own game-faced-Katniss-style-arrow-shooting kind of way.
Myth 1: “I don’t feel like doing this right now, but I probably will tomorrow. I should do this when I feel like it so I know I’ll produce my very best.”
Question: What if you never feel like doing it? Never. What if the sun rises and falls the apposite number of times left until your deadline and you’re still right here, wondering why the keys didn’t punch themselves into an A-worthy synthesis essay while you were just staring at the sleeping monitor?
Even if you never come to your “very best,” you still need to do what you’re avoiding. That fact isn’t going to change. Thus, your precious “very best” is a completely irrelevant variable of which your task is sufficiently independent.
Myth 2: “I can put it off because I’ll have more time later and this really isn’t going to take me that long to do anyway.”
Do you have a crystal ball? More importantly, do you have the mind power to interpret what that crystal ball is saying? Would you pass some of that ability on to me? I’ll answer for you: No, you don’t. You can’t and you won’t.
If it’s not already scientifically proven that whatever amount of time you think you’ll have to get something done is actually that time minus four or five hours (give or take), then it will be some day.
Myth 3: “I work best under pressure.”
Correction: You work under pressure. You work under pressure because you’ve given yourself no other choice. Unless you’ve got a sufficient amount of past evidence — and I’m talking a thorough comparison of projects with and without the pressure that you so confidently claim is creatively inspirational to you — I’m calling this one out for what it actually is.
You are both your biggest ally and enemy in this situation. I don’t know about you, but I want to be the type of tribute who can shoot the apple out of the pig’s mouth right through an oblivious group of judges. Those are the kind of tributes, (and people) we remember, because they are the kind of people who can count on themselves to get things done.
(If you’ve never watched The Hunger Games, I am moderately apologetic. Please do so, after you complete what you’ve been procrastinating from, that is).
April Jaynes is a senior studying journalism and anthropology. What’s your excuse for procrastinating? Email April (when you get around to it) at aj188310@ohiou.edu.
