On Procrastination

I'll be the first to admit: I'm a brilliant procrastinator (maybe because I like YouTube way too much.  Let's be real here).  I tell myself the same lies that all procrastinators tell themselves: oh, after this one video, I'll do a last review for my journalism midterm and type up my honors response and send an email to my Greek professor... but I don't.  It's all little things, too - the study guide is abbreviated, the honors response is a page, the email is five sentences long.

Why do we do these sorts of things?  It's difficult to say.  As I am not the resident psychology major (that would be my roommate), I can't analyze anything, but it probably has something to do with habit.  Establishing habits of doing stuff before 10:00 (and finishing before 8:00, probably) is probably a good life choice.  And I still need to work on that.  I did it for a while, but I need to get back into that sort of thing.

That lifestyle is stressful, though; I did it for my junior and senior years of high school.  Admittedly, if my GPA during the last two years of high school had been my GPA for my first two years as well... I probably would have gotten into several more schools.  What changed?

Part of it might be that I know that my current GPA is a lot better than the GPA of some other people I'm friends with.  After all have the grades to stay in the honors program, to stay in my fraternity, to apply to most College-based jobs, and to keep my scholarships up.  As long as I don't go too far below what I have now, I'll be able to keep doing all those things - and that's something that not all my friends can say.  I think some of that mentality might have rubbed off on me.

The other thing that might have rubbed off on me is that I'm still in the mindset of easy courses.  Last year, I could write a few essays, read a few articles, put in some time in the theatre shop and pull out a good grade in the course.  This semester I'm in two honors courses, which involves a breakneck pace of reading that doesn't condone my level of procrastination. Again, my procrastination levels could be worse, but there is an inverse proportion between Number of Honors Courses Enrolled In and Condonable Procrastination - and I am not wholly used to that ratio being where it is.

I've got to get used to it, however. And hopefully I will - after I go to the bathroom and finish this video.