Procrastination is what I have done for the last three hours; it is the thief of time. It is the art of stalling on a task you would much rather avoid. My years of school have made me a master of procrastination. Yet I am not proud of my title. Procrastination effectively dissolves your time and replaces your attempt to work effectively with pointless acts that lack any relationship to the task at hand. According to the Webster dictionary it is the act of delaying or postponing something. (write about the word the history) The word procrastination automatically summons the image of homework to mind. It is during tasks such as homework that procrastination comes easiest. Much in the same way this essay was assigned, a professor often assigns a project one or two weeks prior to the due date. However, the first draft and final copy are usually one in the same the night before.
The blame repeatedly falls on the shoulders of procrastination. It usually plays out like this… “I will start my essay now… After I get on facebook.” This is usually just the beginning. Social media and networking end in a night of catching up with old friends, reading countless of stories from less than reputable sources, and somehow Youtube videos dominate my computer screen by the end of the night. Sometimes a clean room becomes a priority or I decide that organizing my music library simply cannot wait. Anything is better than doing unwanted work. After all this, three hours goes by in the blink of an eye. Procrastination is a state of being that overruns the mind with countless better things to do while the body sits unaware. In fact, I can trace procrastination in my life back to my childhood.
The Essay on For Eleanor Boylan Talking With God Retreating Into A Cold Night
The end our road that is life, is death and the second we begin to live, we begin to die. A rendition of death and the loss of a loved one is expressed in two different lights in Dylan Thomas Do not go gentle into that Good Night and Anne Sextons for Eleanor Boylan talking with God. Both express the fear and vulnerability of losing someone you thought should live forever Thomas message is an ...
In elementary school I would argue with my mother about cleaning my room and making my bed. In my young mind there was no reason to do either of these things. I would just sleep in my bed that night and all the following nights and make a mess again tomorrow. My mother’s response was always the same; the room must be presentable for guests. Yet this reasoning was insufficient. I would wait to the last possible moment. It wasn’t until I heard the low rumble of a car rolling into our driveway die down and the sound of a jingling doorknob became the padded steps towards my room that room cleaning finally became a priority. At this time, my eight year old self had no idea that these actions had a name – procrastination. Society has drilled it into the public mind that procrastination is a bad thing.
Yet there are reasons procrastination should be embraced. History shows that the Greeks and the Romans embraced the idea of procrastination. The highest ranking leaders in these societies did not act unless it was absolutely necessary; instead, they would procrastinate. While procrastination has proven to be effective in some situations, clear negative outcomes are not only possible, but likely. The question, therefore, does not lie in whether procrastination is necessarily “bad”. The question, instead, is whether we procrastinate well. Many people attempt to redirect the energy once given to procrastination towards something more productive.
For instance, my father’s form of procrastination has manifested itself as gardening. Whenever I find my father avoiding the boring paperwork that his job demands, I almost always find him gardening. He can both procrastinate and releasing stress by clearing his mind so he can get through the paper work with ease. My brother’s form of procrastination takes place in the gym. Working out clears his mind and relieves stress in much the same way gardening helps my father. Whenever procrastination hits me I clean my room. Cleaning my room is not always something on my “to-do” list. Even so, it is something I prefer over school work. All these methods of procrastination may delay us from the necessary demands in our lives, but on they help us accomplish something else entirely by offering a certain peace of mind.
Procrastination and Action
Procrastination, like all of your behaviors carries consequences. Whether your behavior is conscious or unconscious, you will eventually have to deal with the effects. It’s only natural to procrastinate at times but, the way you deal with your procrastination patterns will determine what effects procrastination has on your life. One of the most obvious effects of procrastination is the ...
Negative procrastination is built on a base of flimsy excuses to avoid a less desirable task, which will ultimately affect your results in a negative way. Results will not be produced until you start doing something and procrastination delays that. If you do nothing that is exactly what you will get – nothing! In order to get somewhere you must first get over the hump of procrastination. Nothing should distract you because before you know it you are doing some odd job or pointless work that is not beneficial to you. “I can do it tomorrow” is probably the most common words to justify procrastination. Usually the thought process is that you are not affecting anyone else, that the work will still get done, or that tomorrow is so close to today that there is no difference. Just those five words will delay your work and set you on a pointless path of destruction to yourself.
