A Procrastinator’s 7 Worst Enemies

1. Netflix. While they quantity of movies is far higher than the quality, if you’re a professional at putting things off, you’ll find something in the cinema cesspool that tickles your fancy. Statistics show that every 10 seconds, a procrastinator puts off significant work to watch Thankskilling on Netflix. If you happen to take a liking to a show that has multiple seasons (e.g. How I Met Your Mother), it’s all over. You’ll have no choice but to hold off on being productive until you’re all caught up on said series.

2. Xbox360/Playstation 3. Procrastinators who don’t play video games should nevertest one out. The last thing you need is to discover that you have a strong passion for Call Of Duty. You’ll be setting yourself back in life a good 10 months while you master first person shooters.

3. YouTube. One day I went from watching basketball highlights, to sports fights, to street fights, to police abuse, to police chases, to a fat kid falling as he chases his friend, to a dog falling from the kitchen counter as he tries to steal cookies, to a stupid thief getting caught by police, to the police beating a thief excessively, to some thug beating up some other thug, to basketball players fighting, and then back where I began — basketball highlights. True story. This all happened over a three-hour span. Procrastinators, if you have anything to do within the next 16 hours, I’d recommend avoiding YouTube in its entirety.

4. Socially Active Friends. Just when you decide to sit down and attempt to get some work done, your phone rings. Who is it? It’s your mom, but you brush her off and say you’re busy. It rings again, and who is it now? It’s your socially active friends and they want you to go to the bar, club, restaurant or somewhere that involves you leaving behind your work, and being entirely unproductive. Of course saying “no” is an option, but procrastinators have the gift of self-persuasion. We’ll tell ourselves carpe diem and make impractical, unrealistic plans to finish our work later, even though we know we won’t fulfill them.

5. Food. Sometimes (and by sometimes, I mean always) eating seems more appealing than running errands, doing homework or whatever else you’re putting off. Think about it, what is one thing that you know that you need to get done within the next couple of days? Now I ask, would you rather do that thing or eat a cheeseburger (Boca Burger if you’re vegetarian)? Exactly, burger wins every time.

6. Social Networks. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, MySpace, Black Planet — whatever your poison, social networking is detrimental to production. It’s so easy to get caught up in friends talking about random pointlessness, or repeatedly hitting the refresh button, anticipating someone liking your photos & statuses. You can deactivate your Facebook, but you know you’ll be back so why bother?

 7. Themself. Ultimately it’s on the individual who is procrastinating to handle business like an adult. Since “laziness” is the extremely close brother of procrastination, it’s probably a matter of work ethic. We can challenge ourselves to improve and increase our efforts, but we can’t keep saying we’re going to do it in a few hours… unless Thankskilling is on, in which case we’ll just have to take care of things when it ends.