aLightningbug

The prompt for July 14 was: Now? Later! It asks:

We all procrastinate. Website, magazine, knitting project, TV show, something else — what’s your favorite procrastination destination?

In a way, everything I do feels like a form of procrastination. If I’m doing the laundry, it means I’m not doing something else like cleaning the sink in the bathroom. So I’m thinking there’s a very fine line between procrastination and prioritization.

There is, perhaps, a two-stage litmus tests for this difference. First, does the object of my attention actually need to get done? And second, does it need to get done now?

If I’m doing something that needs to get done, then it’s probably more an issue of prioritization. Laundry needs to get done. But if I should really be doing something else at this very moment, then it also becomes a form of procrastination. Doing the laundry but there are dishes I should get done before I make my daughter’s lunch which needs to happen now. So basically I procrastinate all the time and call it prioritization. I seem to get more stuff done this way.

Pretty much any time I’m writing, I’m procrastinating on some level, because there’s always something else that needs to get done. That’s both procrastination and prioritization. If I make writing a priority, then am I still procrastinating?

Maybe procrastination becomes a matter of degrees. How badly am I procrastinating? Laundry is a sort of single-level procrastination. It needs to get done, but probably not five minutes before we’re supposed to leave the house.

Then there’s double-level procrastination. That’s stuff that I don’t need to do, and I definitely don’t need to be doing it now. Because all it does is steal time from all the other things that need to get done.

For me, the two things that I name as my biggest vices are Carcassonne and Candy Crush (it’s not just candy from the 70s). Neither one of these needs to get done, but they happen. Oh, I try to multitask to minimize the amount of precious time it’s sucking from my life. Play a little Candy Crush in the bathroom anybody? (Sorry if that’s too much information.) Bathroom time needs to happen. Why not multitask? Sometimes my brain really does need a break from all the “must do” things and Carcassonne and Candy Crush offer that in a colorful, satisfying, calorie-free way. I can’t do laundry or dishes in the bathroom. I might as well play a game. So wait, isn’t that a form of single-level procrastination? It doesn’t really need to get done, but if I’m going to do it, that’s a good time. It all seems logical to me until the family yells, “hay, are you playing Carcassonne in there?”