_Photo by Kai Henry _
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Well, it’s final exams week and undergraduates are hogging all of the seats in the library. Each one of them has probably been staring at their monitors for the past 36 hours trying to cram in their brains all of the information that they should’ve learned during the semester. 15 weeks of reading is now being completed in 15 hours. What a terrible time of year!
As a scientist, I hypothesize that procrastination can kill you. There’s probably some data floating around about this but I’ll just do a bit of reasoning on this one. Let’s see, what bad things happen because of procrastination:
1. Sleep deprivation
2. Excessive caffeine consumption
3. Brain overload
4. Elevated blood pressure
5. Poor hygiene
6. Depression
7. Fatigue.
This list looks horrible. Why would anyone do this?
Don’t let procrastination get the best of you. Do your work! Don’t put it off. Start a study schedule in the beginning of the semester and stick to it.
Speaking of this, I’d better go and re-warm my coffee and get back to writing this grant…
The wonderful thing about procrastination is that you end up getting many other useful things done—like writing blog posts—in order to justify putting off the task you should be doing.
A colleague of mine referred to this as WABbing, where WAB stands for ‘Work-Avoidance Behaviour’. Not nearly as portentous a word as ‘procrastination’. though. When my children prolong the evening by thinking up ever-thinner excuses for not going to bed, I imitate the action of a Dalek and charge round the house barking PROCRASTINATE! PROCRASTINATE!!!! YOU WILL BE PROCRASTINATED!!!!!. Strangely, this does not seem to have the desired effect.
Good hypothesis, Nuruddeen. Altough I agree with Matt that there are beneficial side-effects of procrastination (finishing that exciting book,
writing comments to blog posts, doing lots of su dokus, for example), there are, in addition to the personal costs you list, external costs. Some examples:1. The grass on the lawn becomes too long for the mower, so you have to do it by hand first (takes even longer)
2. Your children refuse to speak to you any more becuase they get fed up with take-out food
3. You can’t afford to go on holiday because you never got around to putting your money in an interest-making account
4. Your coffee is always cold (if you ever got around to making it in the first place)
5. Your ratings go shooting down because you never get around to submitting your manuscripts
6. Journals stop asking you to be a peer-reviewer because you never turn in your reports (Shurely shome mistake – Ed?)
7. You are always three days late reading the paper so take your umbrella out on days that turn out sunny and put on your shorts when it is freezing. (mind you, the state of weather forecasting, this might happen anyway).
The Old Sailor
by A.A. Milne
There was once an old sailor my grandfather knew
Who had so many things which he wanted to do
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,
He couldn’t because of the state he was in.
He was shipwrecked, and lived on a island for weeks,
And he wanted a hat, and he wanted some breeks;
And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks
For the turtles and things which you read of in books.
And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing
Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring;
And he thought that to talk to he’d look for, and keep
(If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.
Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut
With a door (to come in by) which opened and shut
(With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about),
And a very strong lock to keep savages out.
He began on the fish-hooks, and when he’d begun
He decided he couldn’t because of the sun.
So he knew what he ought to begin with, and that
Was to find, or to make, a large sun-stopping hat.
He was making the hat with some leaves from a tree,
When he thought, “I’m as hot as a body can be,
And I’ve nothing to take for my terrible thirst;
So I’ll look for a spring, and I’ll look for it first.”
Then he thought as he started, “Oh, dear and oh, dear!
I’ll be lonely tomorrow with nobody here!”
So he made in his note-book a couple of notes:
“I must first find some chickens” and “No, I mean goats.”
He had just seen a goat (which he knew by the shape)
When he thought, “But I must have boat for escape.
But a boat means a sail, which means needles and thread;
So I’d better sit down and make needles instead.”
He began on a needle, but thought as he worked,
That, if this was an island where savages lurked,
Sitting safe in his hut he’d have nothing to fear,
Whereas now they might suddenly breathe in his ear!
So he thought of his hut … and he thought of his boat,
And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat,
And the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his thirst) …
But he never could think which he ought to do first.
And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved -
He did nothing but bask until he was saved!
Students go absolutely insane during exams. Students who can’t stop talking in the library during the regular term suddenly become the biggest complainers about noise levels and vice versa.
We really crack down on noise during exams but slack off a bit on food & drink.
@Henry: WABbing, that’s a good one. My idea of this is flopping myself on the couch with the remote handy.
@Maxine: Those external costs just keeping rising as more and more people depend upon you. I say, if you want to procrastinate, put it on your schedule.
@Chris: Nice poem. Too bad for that poor guy; he should have enjoyed his trip to the beach upon arrival.
@John: That’s funny. When I walked in the library, it seemed as if Venti-sized Starbucks’ cups were the new fashion trend.
I have “fond” memories of those days as an undergrad. I was much better as a grad student, and studied as the semester went along. I managed to cram all my procrastination into grant and manuscript writing instead…
That sounds about right to me Ian. It’s just too much information to cram it into a weekend. Sadly, many graduate students don’t figure that out until their second year.
The internet is the solution to and cause of all WABing (to paraphrase Homer J)