Would You Look At That? You’re Still Not Getting Anything Done.
The year is 2020. It’s March. We leave college because of the nationwide lockdown. We tell each other we’ll see each other in June. Back then, no one even dreamt that it would take a year to finally see each other again, our entire senior year of college spent at home. And when we finally did, we tell each other stories about how we’d spent time during the lockdown. (The time that was not spent texting each other, that is). When it was my turn to finally reveal what I‘d been doing for the past year, I realized that getting taller was somehow the only thing that I had done.
So I think I might be a procrastinator.
To an extent, I always knew I did it. I merely avoided thinking about it to steer myself away from the depressing reality of how I had wasted an entire year bingeing on Netflix, YouTube videos, and FIFA. I was a fresh-faced lad in 2020 who was looking forward to a year where I would finally pick up my guitar and learn all those fancy techniques. The lockdown was the perfect opportunity to finally get all that work done and now, I’m proud to say that I can do them all(albeit with an air guitar).
So there I was, not knowing what to say to my friends, leading me to lie about my non-existent hectic schedule which was of course balanced by a healthy diet, all the while sucking in my belly with the hope that they hadn’t noticed how my shirt didn’t fit me like it used to before. (If it sounded like a song, it’s because it is)
When I finally got back home, I realized that I needed to change some things. I finally sat down to watch the ‘5 Tips To Stop Procrastinating’ and ‘You Can Say Goodbye To Procrastination’ videos on YouTube that I had added to my watchlist months ago. I expected them to light a spark in me and finally get me going on the productivity spree that would naturally lead to a life of fulfillment. After I’d finished watching them, I decided to follow their advice and started meditating, and made a list of my short-term goals. I was even proud of making the list. All that was left was to start following them.
I decided to start doing that from the next day onwards.
Unsurprisingly, I ended up sleeping in which meant that I wasn’t supposed to start being productive that day. It just wasn’t meant to be by the order of fate. Only when the stars had aligned themselves perfectly in the shape of a flying pig and crows were flying backward would I stop procrastinating. That’s what it seemed to be like at that point, at least. One more month went by of me coming up with new and innovative ways to postpone doing anything useful.
Then it finally happened.
At this point, it’s only natural to wonder what extraordinary incident lead to me finally deciding to do something for once. After all, I had humiliated myself in front of my friends, and even that only led to me making a list. What happened was that nothing groundbreaking actually happened (Surprise surprise). It was just a day like any other. I’d woken up around noon and I was wondering how I was going to spend time till it was time to sleep again. It was then that it hit me. I had run out of things to keep me occupied and procrastinating. I had played through my games and I had consumed way too much content that nothing really interested me anymore.
I had officially hit Rock Bottom.
It was such a cliché concept that I used to loathe with the very essence of my soul (I’m not being extreme, I just really hate cliches). Sure, I wasn’t a recovering drug addict or someone with anger management issues. But in my own personal way, I had realized that I could not stoop to a level lower than the one that I had inevitably reached. Me, who had always told myself that I would never be in such a situation ended up being saved by the very concept that I‘d considered beneath me.
Once I realized that my two choices for the day were either to sit in a chair for 12 hours or to sit in a chair for 12 hours and do something, I decided that I’ll always go for the latter from now on. Because sitting in a chair is as boring as watching paint dry. Or talking to some of the people in my college. And I definitely did not want to go through either of those things in my life ever again (Especially the latter). So I looked up new video lessons on playing guitar, some articles on finally getting rid of that bulging belly, and also decided to finally finish reading Pride And Prejudice. The last bit was the real challenge.
Procrastination is probably something that all of us, even the most ‘elite’ have gone through at some point in our lives. The only difference being the degree to which we’ve been affected by it. I’ve failed to stop it countless times while accusing the people who tried to help of misdirecting people or just being generally useless. It took me a long time to realize that the problem was actually with me and not them. As long as I had this mindset of convincing myself that there was always time to do stuff, I was never going to change, irrespective of how many Productivity Gurus I listened to.
My goal here isn’t to help you with your procrastination because there are loads of people out there who are way more qualified to do that. This isn’t a guide to stop procrastinating either. And I’m not saying that everyone has to hit Rock Bottom to finally realize that they should get their shit together. The goal here was to share my experience and hope that someone reads this and realizes that the first step to ending procrastination is to realize that it starts with you, not the to-do list.
So go out there, and do whatever it is that you’d been putting off from doing for God knows how long.
Maybe I’ll go watch some Netflix now..
