I am a procrastinator: a time-waster, a faffer-about, an idler, a vacillator. A self-loathing, self-sabotaging masochist grappling with that mad parody of perfectionism, which leads, instead of efficiency, to neglect, apathy, inertia, distraction, and great pain. It is irrational but irresistible. It is to time-keeping the greatest false economy since the finances of the Weimar Republic.
Most people procrastinate to an extent, delaying gratification in things that are not professional – paperwork, loading the washing machine, emptying the dishwasher. The only people I have ever known who did not even do that were my parents, both examples of the war generation. My father joined the RAF at 17, and my mother was a Pitman’s head girl who always maintained: ‘Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today’, which I transposed to, ‘Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow’.
Procrastination may look like a noun but it is in fact a verb and, although it does not further activity, it is, curiously, active
In lots of professions, procrastination is not a thing. It is literally unworkable. Planes wouldn’t fly; shops would be left unattended; medical operations would end in disaster. You would be fired. Procrastination and the agony of it – the sheer pointless self-sabotage of deferred action – is endemic in less practical careers. The most susceptible to procrastination work at home, the solo writers in particular (of which I am one). The problem is that there is a very thin, faint line between working at home and being at home.
I feel I am a credit to the procrastination community, so allow me to explain my general theory of the process. Procrastination may look like a noun but it is in fact a verb and, although it does not further activity, it is, curiously, active. The two main types of procrastination are 1. faffing, whereby an indescribable amount of petty tasks, daydreaming, pacing, and dilly-dallying occurs, or 2. pottering, which would involve, in my case, the indoor plants, the garden, art, and craft. I busy myself with indulgences. I take an anti-pride in being an eminent, open procrastinator. I am a dazzling cautionary tale and own it to the extent that I once made a blue plaque saying ‘Caroline Gold, time-waster and internet smart arse procrastinated here. 2016 to the present day…’ A homage to myself that I posted on the greatest contribution to the field of faffing ever known to humankind, the un-industrial revolution, the time-eating miracle that is, as you all know, the internet.
It is a marvellous place to connect with others who are prolific in this fatal foible. Writing is the only job in which one procrastinates by doing what they are supposed to do elsewhere and now can do it in cahoots, on Facebook walls and profiles and in the tributaries of private messages. Although I know a few novelists who dip in, the greatest exponents of this are journalists who, more than anyone, love the sound of their own keyboards. We are a den of thieves of time. We are all people who work to deadlines, which we leave to the last minute. A few admirable Stakhanovites, like Julie Burchill, get up at the same time as dairy farmers, get everything done by noon, and then can play in the afternoon. I am, as I was as a student, inclined to pull an all-nighter if I should leave it late.
Mozart famously composed the overture for Don Giovanni by pulling an all-nighter before it premiered. This is very naughty given the orchestra. Like me, he had a disciplined father who warned him: ‘If you examine your conscience, you will find that you have a strong tendency to procrastination’. No shit, Leopold!
But you see, Mozart could only write because of the all-important deadline. The deadline should, in fact, be called a lifeline as it is a last-minute cavalry bugle. Those who are roused thus, who can cope, are prolific once begun. In my case, I think this may be textbook: there are but two speeds – all or nothing – a type of procrastinator who relies on concentrated islands of manic focus in an ocean of fuzzy nothingness. This does not ultimately hamper productivity but makes it all something of a mad lifestyle.
It is of comfort that procrastination is not a malady of the mediocre. Notable procrastinators include Hunter S. Thompson, Margaret Atwood, Herman Melville, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Victor Hugo, Douglas Adams, and Franz Kafka. J.K. Rowling, who is typical of the modern exponent, responded to an inquiry into her activity by tweeting back: ‘Fighting with a tricky chapter and procrastinating by making tea and looking at Twitter. How are you?’ Then, in response to a follow-up tweet saying ‘social media is the root to all procrastinating’, instead of a like and leaving it there, heroically, she adds to keep the detour going: ‘Along with books bought for research that are too interesting to put down, 24-hour news and, of course, Minecraft.’ She often spends her evenings procrastinating and wandering around her castle-like house. I am not impressed by this as I can manage the same with only four rooms – and at a push, just the two downstairs, where the kettle and dog reside.
Hunter S. Thompson admitted: ‘I really couldn’t imagine writing without a desperate deadline.’ He put this down to being an adrenaline junkie. The highly prolific Margaret Atwood, another confessed procrastinator, admitted that she never missed a deadline, which she felt would be ‘dishonourable’. I agree with her and welcome the disciplining deadline. I was always shocked that Douglas Adams enjoyed the ‘whoosh’ of a missed one. It would be like running after the finishing line and a bit grand, as they say in the theatre. You have to be a bankable name to be a diva.
The deadline should, in fact, be called a lifeline as it is a last-minute cavalry bugle
Samuel Johnson, although not lost for words, lost time and was open about it: ‘My reigning sin, to which perhaps many others are appendant, is waste of time, and general sluggishness.’ He wrote an eloquent essay to caution against the habit whereby: ‘life is languished away in the gloom of anxiety, and consumed in collecting resolution which the next morning dissipates; in forming purposes which we scarcely hope to keep, and reconciling ourselves to our own cowardice by excuses which, while we admit them, we know to be absurd.’ Marvellously, this article is reported to have been hastily written last minute while a messenger boy waited to carry it to press. Exemplary. I’ll salute him – later.
Victor Hugo, I discovered, was also a lot like me. He bought himself a huge knitted shawl and locked away all his formal clothes so that he wouldn’t be tempted to go out. Herman Melville is apocryphally reported to have had his wife chain him to his desk while he was writing Moby-Dick. Samuel Taylor Coleridge once managed to get around to writing, ‘so completely has a whole year passed, with scarcely the fruits of a month.—O sorrow & Shame. I am not worthy to live—Two & thirty years.—& this last year above all others!—I have done nothing!’ 32! Luxury! Mind you, Sam, the drink and drugs. This is another, not-uncommon occupational evergreen distraction, however.
The 14th Dalai Lama was also prone to procrastination and cheerfully advised: ‘To counteract this tendency, it is important to meditate on impermanence, on the fact that death might come at any moment.’ I am a humourist prone to reactive depression. I call that ruminating on the negative, but what do I know? In my next life, I’ll likely be a sloth. I do the opposite: I endeavour to cheer others up, which cheers me up and raises my spirits and game. I also laugh at myself. One day, I was so disgusted with myself for not writing all day what I was supposed to, I wrote instead the following:
A Writer’s Day: [AKA Ballad of A Lazy Girl]
Today began with an apathy that delayed my procrastination
This meant my midday lethargy was postponed by hesitation
By lunch, all action ceased by the resulting sense of ennui
If it weren’t already someone else, I’d be my own worst enemy.
By tea time, I was berating myself for being so pathetically slack
In everything but somehow never missing out on that long nap
In the grip of frozen inertia or a grumbling anxiety attack
That I still have the motivation to arrange a takeaway or snack
I am not sure if, for any of us, it’s a blessing or a curse
Despite all this, I express myself in the form of random verse
Still, as far as displacement activity goes, there’s a heck of a lot worse.
This article is free to read
To unlock more articles, subscribe to get 3 months of unlimited access for just $5
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in