I am such an unbelievable procrastinator. In the sense that I'm very good at it. I have these small bursts of productivity, during which I would produce really good quality of work within a short period of time, and then I spend the rest of the day doing nothing. Like, literally, NOTHING. Luckily, the quality of my work is usually good enough to make up for the slack time and the un-productivity thereof, which is the only reason why I'm not fired yet.
But it doesn't mean I like being a procrastinator.
Procrastination is depressing. The procrastination that I'm talking about here isn't putting off something in order to do something more enjoyable or fulfilling. Leaving your work for later while going out for afternoon tea with your co-workers doesn't count as procrastination. Neither is deciding to hit the gym tomorrow after finishing the buffet dinner tonight. Real procrastination - trust me, I'm the expert here - involves doing absolutely nothing and feeling horrible about it. Anything you do you do with a blank mind and with the sole purpose of waiting for time to pass. There's no enjoyment, or relief, but only guilt and agony.
So why do people (read: I) still procrastinate? It could be that the work that we're trying to avoid is so dreadful that even guilt and agony feels better than that thing itself. Or - this is for all those helpless perfectionist out there - the reason could be that we want to wait for the perfect moment to start working on it. Think about it: if we don't start, then there's no chance for it to even become imperfect! So we plan, and wait, and plan, and wait, we promise ourselves we'll start once the right moment has arrived, only to realise that the right moment is always tomorrow.
Tomorrow we'll rock the world. For now, let me just go back to Facebook and do some more procrastinating.
Bye.
