You are sitting at your desk, sipping a hot cup of tea (carefully, so as not to burn your tongue), revising for an examination. You need to check an answer for one of your past papers, so you open your laptop for just a brief moment. You find the answer and are about to close your laptop, when you are suddenly unable to do so. An irrepressible desire to check your social media overwhelms you and you say to yourself: "Just 10 minutes...".
Half an hour later, you are still browsing the depths of the Internet and yet you continue to tell yourself: "After I have read/watched this, I'll get back to work...". Instead, you click on another link.
After an hour, or however long you end up procrastinating, you realise how much time you have indeed wasted. You are ashamed of your actions and are adamant to change.
Unfortunately, it is a habit that is admittedly difficult to break and it requires a lot of self-control (which I seem to lack in) to stop yourself from spending your time in a non-productive manner.
As it is currently exam season, it is all the more important to stay focused - for that reason, I deactivated all of my social media accounts (it was indeed difficult to part with them) and installed a Chrome web extension which can block certain websites and set a maximum time limit you can spend on all of them in one day (10 minutes in my case). Sadly, I have found Google Chrome's Incognito Mode to be quite the enemy as the web extension doesn't work on it.
However, procrastination does not always come in digital form.
Recently, baking has become one of my forms of procrastination - I have been inspired to try this whole new range of vegan cake recipes and they are absolutely delicious! Now, baking has always been an enjoyable experience for me (don't get me wrong!), but it indisputably counts as procrastination! When baking, I typically have my music blaring through the speakers in the living room and dance along to it whilst stirring ingredients together. I find it so refreshing and it helps relieve stress - and you have food to nibble on later! It is also a useful alternative to napping, which I am also guilty of. I really should break this habit otherwise my family and I will look like potatoes on the beach this summer...
Lately, I've also been going on long, brisk walks around the neighbourhood as a form of procrastination. An hour or more of walking through the area, with my headphones in, seems to have a therapeutic effect and I find it ideal whenever I wish to get away from the place I call home - whether it is to get away from my family for an hour or so, to clear my thoughts or to refresh my mind after losing concentration. I can get lost in my imagination and think about anything but exams, whilst fitting in some exercise into my daily routine - perfect! When I get back home, I feel so much more energetic and my work ethic and productivity improves, meaning I get more work done and I feel better about myself by the end of the day.
Even this is me procrastinating, so I will cease nattering on about procrastination whilst procrastinating and will leave you to procrastinate in your own time.
What do you do to procrastinate? Comment below if you do the aforementioned forms of procrastination or if you have any other forms that I do not know of!
Blog you later!
Tiger x
