Procrastination

There are so many things that I should be doing right now.  Projects to finish.  Papers to grade.  Manuscripts to revise.  Real work, such as laundry or organizing the basement or cleaning off the desk.  However, I will find twenty other things to do first.  I have been procrastinating for twelve hours now.  I'm only delaying the inevitable.  The work must get finished, particularly the grading since next week is Finals.  But, here I sit on my happy ass browsing the web, blogging, shopping Etsy...anything to avoid reading these papers.

What part of my normally logical mind allows me to do this?  It will only stress me more later when I'm in a time crunch to get them all finished, and students are nagging for feedback.  Is procrastination really just a form of avoidance? 

Some people are the type that stick their heads in the sand and pretend that problems or issues do not exist.  Not me!  My head is held high while I am pointing out all of the problems I see.  I have never been one to back away from a challenge or avoid the inevitable.

Or have I?

I have often said that I work better under pressure, or that I need a deadline to motivate me.  Are those just excuses for my avoidant behavior?  If I pretend the chores don't exist, then they don't?  Why do we do this and have we always been this way?  Has procrastination always existed? 

It seems to be such a modern phenomenon.  I cannot imagine the country's forefathers putting things off.  Can you imagine Lincoln, sitting in the White House, smoking his pipe and saying to his crazy wife, "Uggghhh...I really should be writing that Emancipation Proclamation thingy.  I guess I will start on it after I finish watching this grass grow"?   

(I mean, really, what else did he have to do back then?  No tv, no internet...well, I guess there's the theater...).

Maybe that's the issue.  Modern humans have so many options for how to spend our time, and yet we still only have the same number of hours in a day as Lincoln did.  We have to make choices as to how those hours are spent, and the choices can be really difficult to make.  Fun, relaxation, excitement, learning, responsibilities, income, duty...these are all factors in the equation of how to spend our time. 

Do we do what we want to do or what we need to do?  We feel guilty doing something we want to do when we should be doing something that is needed.  Then we end up finding a third option that isn't as pleasurable as the first, but is still better than the work we should be doing.  That let's us ease up on the guilt factor.  "Yes, I was blogging instead of grading papers...but at least I wasn't shopping!" 

Sometimes, I am just so overwhelmed by all of the choices, that I don't do any of them.  That's when I just sit and stare out the window, watching the grass grow.