procrastination station

Today I am facing a big work deadline, and I have been procrastinating like it’s my job. In fact, I am such a procrastinator that I have invented a new form: meta-procrastination. That’s right, I am procrastinating by writing about procrastination.

To wit: I have compiled a list of my top five favorite ways to avoid work.

iChat videoconferencing: I use iChat with only one person: my sister. Instead of having conversations like normal people, we play music and dance. Sometimes, while dancing, we IM (rather than speak, so as not to interrupt the jam) each other things like, “This song is hot!” or “I secretly love Justin Timberlake!”

As you may have guessed, this is the all-time best way to waste time. I highly recommend it.

Internet Boggle and sudoku: I know I’m not alone in this, but sometimes it feels that way.

Googling friends, family, and random acquaintances: If there is anything on the Internet about you, I have probably read it. Does that make you feel weird? Don’t worry: If there is anything on the Internet about my elementary school classmates, I have probably read that, too.

I used to worry that this habit was abnormal, but I have since learned that many people do it. My friend K admitted to googling me once, and her search yielded an awesome discovery: K.O. The Modern Singing Cowboy.

On the other hand, my friend once dated a guy who, when we first met, told me that he admired my graduate school essay on the word dialectic that came up when he googled my name + University of Chicago. That was creepy because I didn’t even know him and that shit was buried on, like, the third page.

Incidentally, if you’re wondering if I wish I were a modern singing cowboy instead of a person who wrote an essay on the word dialectic, the answer is, emphatically, yes.

Making to do lists: I like to make obsessively detailed lists, and then never again refer to them.

Talking on the phone with D: This might not sound so ridiculous until I point out that D literally lives beneath me. We talk for several hours each day because we are far too lazy to visit one another’s apartments, except for important activities like watching tv or playing board games.

Usually, I beat myself up for all the useful things I could be doing instead of procrastinating, like writing, watching The Wire, or exercising. But lately I’ve been trying to have a more positive attitude, so I decided to make a list of all the things I’m glad that I’m not doing instead.

Top five worse ways in which I could procrastinate:

Writing fan fiction: I didn’t even know this genre existed until JK Rowling made that announcement about Dumbledore being gay. Soon after that, I read a Cary Tennis column where someone admitted to being consumed by HP fan fiction. WTF?!?

Reading those online comics for the tv show Heroes: so very tempting.

Chasing cats: also tempting. I don’t mean them harm; I chase because I love. This actually used to be a habit of mine in college, but I have reformed.

Watching sports: Imagining a world in which I could feel bored enough to watch sports is a very sobering activity indeed.

Spying on my neighbors: D is really into this and I would totally do it too if our neighbors were the least bit compelling.

(Quick digression: I went to a ‘meet your neighbors’ party a few weeks ago that was held in the laundry room, where we ate bratwurst and grocery-store potato salad. I was both distressed and fascinated to meet the weird people who live here. Many of them were surprisingly old, including a lady who couldn’t walk and someone who I suspect was actually homeless and squatting in the laundry room. Unfortunately, the neighbors you can see from my windows are the dirty vegans I provoked with remarks about bacon.)

What are your favorite ways to procrastinate?