Procrastination

Procrastination is to the college student as the the sound of a roaring train is to the damsel in distress tired to the rails. You can feel it coming--you can hear it coming--then you can see it coming and your heart does a desperate flop to the pit of your stomach--perhaps trying to escape the inevitable. The end is near.

But I've found my cure for my procrastination--my savior who will untie the ropes.

Do what I WANT to do first.

Maybe this isn't a new concept to many. Maybe some people figured this out a long time ago and failed to tell me. And if that is you--shame shame on you! That wasn't very nice!

See, I'm a big fan of the to-do list. I can't function with a nice little calender or planner where every second of my life is listed out. I just make a list of things that I really ought to get done and that is that. And for the most part it really was working for me. The thrill of crossing something out and all, well, it is a nerds high.

But I had one problem. I always looked at the list and like many have advised, I did the thing I dreaded most first. But by the time I got done with it, I would look at the rest of the list and not feel like it anymore. Turn the clock back about an hour or so ago and I had a real passion brewing in me to do at least one thing on that list. But the other task just drained me.

But as of this past semester, I just started to do the things I liked and wanted to do first. I had more passion for them as I was doing them. Eventually I would get to the task that I really didn't want to do, but, well, it would be the last thing to do and I would have that "just get it over with" feeling and that seemed to be sufficient enough.

Of course there are exceptions: like that thing I don't want to do is due very, very soon. We all know at that point that it is just time to do it.

The more I write about this little discovery of mine, the more I think it may be very bad advice for some people, perhaps a train wreck. But for me . . . it untied the ropes.