Hello future freshmen! Hope you're enjoying your tour of UNL's lovely campus. You're getting a bunch of information thrown at you all at once. Overwhelmingly, this information is "good advice" and stuff that "you need to be successful in college."
Yeah, only about a third of this is actually useful. Even then, you could easily take it or leave it. Instead of talking about that, let's talk about procrastination. More specifically, let's talk about how to elevate your current procrastination habits into an art form.
Ready?
If you answered "yes," you've already failed, freshie.
What's that? You've never had a problem with procrastination before? You were always on time and budgeted your time correctly in high school?
I was like that once, too. I completed high school assignments days ahead of time and had plenty of time to do as I pleased. Heck, I thought I'd avoided the dangerous genetic cocktail my parents had passed on to me. See, they're both notorious procrastinators, and foolishly I believed that those genes canceled each other out. Instead, something much worse happened: I had a latent procrastination gene, the worst kind of all, because even the gene procrastinated! It kicked in hardcore during my freshman year.
It used to be that you had to work hard at finding ways to distract yourself. Now we've got the Internet, and we're connected to stupid arguments, cute kitties and funny videos.
That being said, procrastination can be turned into an art. Think of it as a game — the closer you can get to the deadline, the more you win! In the words of the great Douglas Adams, "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."
Adams is right. Deadlines totally make a "whoosh" noise. But what Adams doesn't tell us is the weird effect stress has. If you hit your stress peak, where you're ripping out your hair and want to scream, the weirdest things have a euphoric effect. I swear, while I was attempting to write a 20-page history research paper, Lady Gaga's "Alejandro" was the most beautiful thing I'd heard in my life.
The lethal combo that made this happen was, of course, too much coffee, stress and sleep deprivation. You know, because instead of sleeping and budgeting your time correctly, blasting silly pop songs and sweating about your grades is a far better use of your time. (Pop songs sound amazing at 3 a.m., by the way. It's really the only time to listen — and dance — to them.) Truly, my procrastination is the only reason I know all of the words to "It's Raining Men."
And you can sleep when you're dead.
That being said, sometimes you'll be forced to make difficult choices about how to manage your time. For example, say you've got this HUGE project due, but your best friend just got dumped and needs to be consoled lest something terrible happen. What do you do? Will you be a good student or a good friend?
Whether you like it or not, drama, problems with friends, family, whatever, will come up. These events will give a profound edge to your procrastination.
But hey, you can put off dealing with those things 'til they actually come up. There are more fun ways to procrastinate:
First, log onto your social media platform of choice and document your struggle. Update on all the wacky things that enter your brain while you're pushing off that assignment. You know, because documenting your laziness and lack of work ethic is a stellar idea. There is no way that tweeting (try #ThingsIThinkAboutWhileProcrastinating) or status updating during your procrastination period will come back to haunt you. Nope. Not at all. More importantly, bring anybody else who has a major assignment down with you. The more the merrier in Procrastination Land, don't you know?
If you can't get anybody to join your procrastination party and need to go it solo, turn on the Internet.
Look at pictures of cute animals. There are a plethora of websites that cater to this need. Really, if you don't know of any, you live under a rock. Spend about an hour doing that, or until the animals stop being SUPER CUTE! And remember, these sites DON'T exist while you have free time.
Head over to YouTube for a bit, watch Internet memes. Consider criteria for ranking the awesomeness of said memes. Watch more videos. Explore the genre of abridged anime for a bit, while you're at it. I highly recommend Dragon Ball Z Abridged because it's amazing.
Check back on your paper. Reread what you wrote. Consider expanding, but wait until the video has loaded.
Watch the video and forget about whatever it was you were thinking about.
Next thing you know, it's 3 a.m. and you've got Ke$ha blasting in your earbuds. How did this happen?
We may never know. Listen to how glorious the glittery goddess sounds. Notice how much more difficult it is to hit a single key on your computer, how heavy your body feels.
Wait a moment, breathe. Listen to your heart beat against your ribcage as Ke$ha sings about her swagger.
Feel the adrenaline in your veins. Now you'll move faster than a cheetah chasing a gazelle.
Crank up the Ke$ha. You have work to do.
Rhiannon Root is a junior news-editorial and history major. Reach her at rhiannonroot@dailynebraskan.com
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