I put the 'pro' in procrastination.

          They say that the first step to overcoming an addiction is to admit you have a problem so... Alright I'll admit it. I, Brianna Kormendy suffer from extreme procrastination. But I can't be the only one right? Well according to all my friends' tweets and statuses about having so much work to do, I'm obviously not alone in this matter. I am ashamed to say that I procrastinate way too often, heck I even procrastinated to do this blog!

          From what I've experienced, procrastination seems to be a cycle. First I am presented with a task ahead of time, I tell myself "Hey! Maybe I should start it now so I don't have to worry about it later." But that rarely ever happens, I usually end up convincing myself that it's not worth worrying about in that moment and I waste my time doing something much more important, for example, sleeping. You'd think that as the task deadline approaches I would say "Hey I have to get this task done soon, I should do it now." Nope. Rather the contrary, I make up infinite excuses as to why I can't start yet. My usual excuses among others include: eating, because you can"t get anything done on an empty stomach; sleeping, because you can't work well when you're not well rested; checking ALL my social media feeds and making sure to refresh the page 10 times just in case I miss any "important" updates.

            Finally, it's the night before the task deadline and incredibly is STILL manage to convince myself that I've got enough time to take a two hour nap. The cycle finishes in a chaotic and mentally-stressing short period of time where I violently scramble to get all the work done that I could have calmly gotten done beforehand. Once the task is done, I never fail to promise myself to never do that again and time and time again that promise is broken.

This cycle is accurately represented by this little diagram

          Often times, after getting the task done, I realize that it wasn't that difficult and if I would've done the task little by little every day, I could have finished the task without the stress. Without having done any research, this leads me to think that maybe our brains trick us into thinking that a task is too overwhelming and that we should therefore put it off.

How I feel when presented with a task

          The scariest part about procrastination, is realizing all the time you've lost while putting something off. All those wasted days, hours, minutes, seconds that you can never get back. Time you could've used to so something productive, something that you love, like learning something new, creating something, acquiring a new skill. That in my opinion is pant-soilingly terrifying. I'm not sure that 'pant-soilingly' is an actual word but it's the only way I can describe how horrid wasted time makes me feel. That is why I've decided to dedicate my blog to this topic. Because I want to seize life by the ba... horns and I want to stop procrastinating once and for all.

          If after having read my first post you realize that you too are a victim of this time-stealing demon, stay tuned, because in my next post I will be diving head first into the science behind procrastination. Hopefully answering the why of this phenomenon. 

  

This video pretty much walks you through how a procrastinator's brain works when attempting to accomplish any task.