It’s a conundrum, to be sure. But it’s unavoidable: no matter how much work you have, no matter how desperately you need to complete the work in question, no matter how close the deadlines are, no matter how much coffee you’ve had, your immediate impulse, upon plopping into your computer chair, is to log into GMail and check your email for the third time that hour – or scan through Facebook again – or tweet about how you have sooooo much work, omg. I’m not a YouTuber, but I’m told that’s a popular option. (I prefer obsessively checking the number of hits my blog has gotten recently.) The New York Times and Montreal Gazette always beckon, reminding me of my general inability to keep up with current events (hey, that’s why I have the marching band…and ‘Wait, wait, don’t tell me….’). And, if all else fails, there’s always those old standbys, solitaire and fanfiction. One of these days, i’m going to find an internet Minesweeper game, too, and then I’ll really be screwed. Add in the twin specters of Netflix Instant Viewing and thesixtyone, and it’s astonishing that I ever accomplish anything anymore. But why should I want to work, where there are so many far more amusing distractions available at my fingertips?
One friend mentioned that last year, she forget to bring her ethernet cable back to school with her; as a result, whenever she wanted to do anything online, she had to go to the student lounge in her building to get wireless. She was happy about it – because she wasn’t wasting time on Facebook, or Twitter, or anything else. Well, that’s all fine and good. If I unplugged my ethernet, most of my distractions would be gone, it’s true (though iTunes and the gigantic bookcase next to my desk would still remain), but most of my work would be gone, too! My teachers love assigning podcasts, nytimes.com articles, even YouTube videos (oh, Indian Music, the love-hate relationship continues on). Losing the internet would just become a great excuse for me to shrug and start re-reading “Les Miserables” for the nth time. So…not such an effective technique.
And even singing, my absolute favorite thing in the whole entire world, is so easy to procrastinate on. The weather is gross – I’m not wearing shoes – Shapiro (the nearest building with practice rooms) is so far away – obviously I can put it off for another fifteen minutes (which becomes half an hour, then an hour, then an afternoon, and it spirals downward). The one upside to this, however, is that it’s a lot easier to get a practice room at two am than at eight-thirty pm. (Even procrastination occasionally has advantages! Gee, whiz.)
What I want to know, though, is why do we all procrastinate so consistently? Nothing that I have to do is terribly unpleasant. I’m not wading through Kant or organic chemistry. Nothing is terribly difficult, either – as seriously as my Art Hum professor takes it, reading about Rembrandt is not what you could call strenuous in any way. (Sorry, Dr. Guerin.) I’m not delaying a toilet-cleaning session – doing laundry involves almost no work, thanks to the modern miracles that are the washing and drying machines. My life is easy. No procrastination should be required.
Or should it? I’ve noticed that if I start my homework as soon as I get home, I finish just in time for bed, with maybe a chapter or two of Orson Scott Card before I start emitting metaphorical ZZZs. But if I delay for an hour or two with that episode of Glee that I missed last week, I still finish everything that night (because I have to) and I usually get enough sleep anyway. The theory being, of course, that the renewed sense of urgency, spurred by my desperate need for sleep and the understanding that this work must get done tonight allows me to accomplish everything in a shorter period of time. Singing aside (which you can’t rush and don’t want to rush anyway), everything happens more quickly. It’s magical.
But then…there’s GChat. I have to consciously remind myself (read: force myself) to click my status over to “invisible.” Otherwise, I’ll chat with Sarah…and Elizabeth…and the other Elizabeth…and Isabelle…while singing along with whatever’s playing on iTunes…while texting the IB…and occasionally snacking.
Huh.
Obviously, the key to increased productivity must be the ability to limit your focus. But that’s close to impossible for most people these days – especially people my age, who threw parties when Firefox introduced tabbed browsing and who have five email addresses (serving five separate purposes – school, work, other work, internship, personal) linked to a master GMail account that they set up back in the day when you still needed an invitation to get an account. Either we’re obsessively checking half-a-dozen webpages in rotation, or we’re obsessing over why we aren’t checking said pages. These days, the only times I’m truly disconnected are when I’m asleep and when I’m singing (I force myself to leave my phone in my room, for obvious reasons – so maybe ten hours a day, seven of which are spent unconscious. I suppose it could be worse (I could be one of those people who wakes up when GChat dings), but not by much.
So that being said, can anyone suggest alternatives? How do I close out the world without closing myself into a practice room? How do you do it – or do you do it? Please, share. I can’t wait to hear it. I know that I am for one am stuck, and I don’t fancy the thought of procrastinating forever. Anyone got any willpower exercises to suggest? Please, BRING IT ON!
10 responses so far ↓
Holly // 15 November 2009 at 10.27 pm |
I wish I could give a suggestion, but I’m actually worse than you are. When I practice, I bring my phone AND my laptop. Granted, my laptop is my metronome, but the broadway practice rooms very (in)conveniently have wireless internet…gr…
Sarah // 16 November 2009 at 12.13 am |
Stay away from minesweeper! It consumed most of my summer (when you weren’t visiting, of course)…
Also, I think that procrastination is actually a healthy part of daily life (to an extent, of course…moderation and whatnot). Let’s face it–you’re a productive member of society. Everything that you need to do will get done.
smorris88 // 16 November 2009 at 1.55 am |
I try to embrace it. Of course, it helps that I felt compelled to wrap Christmas presents while watching the fifth episode of West Wing of the day. But seriously, today I had my laptop next to another computer and had earphones in and West Wing on my laptop and was really productive on the other computer. I think its really just a way of life.
Cason // 17 November 2009 at 6.35 pm |
Kathleen Norris, a writer who recounts her lifelong struggle with Acedia says that one of the ways Acedia manifests itself is by convincing the afflicted to put off high-priority responsibilities by accomplishing low-priority things instead. The lie is acedia convinces us of is that this is okay because at least one is still accomplishing something. But the truth is that we’ve so completely filled our lives with the distracting, mundane activities our culture values so much that we spend very few hours of our day getting the truly important stuff done… in other words, we aren’t living life.
For most people in America life is a series of distractions. Facebook helps us keep up with people, but ultimately it is a distraction from our immediate surroundings, of what is most important. The history of distraction is an interesting one. In modernity it was books first, then music (radio). In our post-modern world it has been TV, and the internet. All these things help Acedia to thrive, and make it very hard to detect, because distractions are seriously distracting. I personally love TV, books, and music, but for every minute I spend involved with those things, that’s another minute I’ve spent escaping the real world around me. It’s hard to put TV away, even harder to put books down, and I’m sure I’ll never stop listening to music. But one of my main goals these days is to cut down on the amount of time I spend in self-gratification, and so I continue to miss tv shows I really enjoy, and I get involved in an out-reach ministry instead. I spend fewer hours in the morning surfing the web, and I spend more time working so that I can get out of debt quicker and into full-time ministry sooner. I limit myself to reading only 2 hours a day, and I make sure that at least an hour of that is the Bible, because after all the books I’ve read in my life I’m just now beginning to see that the most important book to read is the Bible, and that often.
So I guess what you need to ask yourself is “what’s important to me, and how many waking hours a day am I willing doing anything else but something important?”
Cason // 17 November 2009 at 6.36 pm |
… I also meant to add, ask yourself if you suffer from Acedia, like most people in this country (including me). If you want to find out, read Norris’ book “Acedia and Me”
Hilary // 17 November 2009 at 10.48 pm |
Holly – I love my phone because I have a metronome loaded onto it. iPhone for the win. Then again, I don’t really use a metronome that often when I sing, which is how I get away with that. (Piano’s a different story.) But hey, now I know what to get you for Christmas!
Sarah – obviously I should have spent more time with you in Israel to save you from Minesweeper. MY BAD! And it’s true, I think everyone does need a little procrastination in their life. We can’t be totally productive constantly.
Other Sarah – I agree, in some ways, it is a way of life. And you make it work. And I feel like I’m very good at multitasking, which has served me very well over the past few years. It’s handy, no lie!
And Cason – who says that reading, listening to music, and even watching certain TV shows and movies can’t be productive? Music is the most important thing in the world to me – it’s how I live, it’s how I pray, it’s how I express myself to the world. The thought that there are more productive things in the world than that just doesn’t resonate with me.
Also, I find that there are times when I honestly need to be doing something that I don’t *need* to be doing, if that makes sense. You can’t be 100% productive 100% of the time – you’d go insane. Everyone needs an hour of pop music or crappy fanfiction (or even – gasp – both simultaneously) every now and then.
I guess my point is that while it’s important to be productive, it’s just as important to take time for personal distractions, too. Not too much time (not that that’s ever been much of a problem for me), but enough to relax and refresh and remember that the world is not about to end.
(I guess my point is that I’m pretty sure I don’t have acedia. Then again, reading the Wikipedia article was enough to convince me of that. I may be lazy at times, but I’m certainly not that lazy. And there’s a big difference between acedia and general laziness.)
Cason // 19 November 2009 at 12.10 am |
Yes, those things can be productive. And yes, it is important to escape sometimes from complete productivity. And certainly practicing music is of first importance to you. I never meant to imply differently. Music is just as central to my own life, as you well know. But your complaint was figuring out how to overcome procrastination if necessary, and what I was trying to say is that prioritization is key. And I also read the Acedia article on Wikipedia. It doesn’t do the word justice, particularly because the word is so old, and deals with a subject that’s very difficult to put into words. All I can say is that Norris’ book is so necessary because it’s focus is not define Acedia perfectly, but to explain it through her life-story, and what the Wik article failed to mention was that a big manifestation of Acedia is to drown you with an overload of meaningful-but-less-important activities to distract you from what’s more important. And this culture breeds Acedia in its citizens because it tells us that escaping from productivity is the most important thing, and that pleasing oneself through enjoyable activities is synonymous with productivity. And you’re right, it is so true that there’s a big difference between acedia and laziness, because most Americans aren’t lazy. We produce a lot. But through Acedia a large percentage of what we produce is meaningless, even less meaningless than The Teacher of Ecclesiastes’ experiences.
Jody // 22 November 2009 at 5.41 am |
Lord have mercy, child, didn’t your mother teach you any discipline? FIRST you do your homework, THEN you watch TV. Of course, this is the kid who at fourteen was already listening to music, web surfing, watching the Good Eats coffee episode for the umpteenth time, and (supposedly) doing homework, simultaneously. Sometimes you just have to tell yourself: NOW I’m doing this, and THEN I will do this, and AFTER THAT I will do this.
And then I will e-mail my mom.
P.S.–Hi, Cason!
anah // 29 November 2009 at 5.36 pm |
my problem of procrastination is totally YOUR fault! lol when you post new blogs I HAVE to read them no matter how much stuff I have to do. haha just kidding. it’s not your fault. but seriously. you are right. we all procrastinate. the solution is get rid of facebook, youtube, myspace, twitter, basically everything you distract yourself with…although then life would just be boring. so i don’t really know what the solution is. i know i’m a pretty bad procrastinator too so don’t feel bad…we all do it.
Hilary // 29 November 2009 at 11.38 pm |
Dear Mom: I still do that. And the work does all get done. (Really!) At least I don’t listen to music while watching TV – and these days, half the time the music I’m listening to is for one class or another anyway.
And then I will email my mom. :-D
Anah – truuuuuue story. And the crazy thing is, the people who came up with Facebook and MySpace probably did it to procrastinate on something else. Meta much?