Bwog at Butler, making friends

Dear Bwog,

At what point does my procrastination become a real problem?

Yours,

Buzzfeeding in Butler

Dear Buzzfeeding in Butler,

Now, we’ve all been known to take a sip of procrastination here and there. Sometimes you just need a little to decompress after a long day or give your head a break. In fact, in moderation, procrastination truly is helpful–all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, you know? That movie was so creepy. It’s all that typical Stanley Kubrick tension, it takes so long to build up so that it just explodes at the end. Plus there’s so much mystery to it, even after the movie ends, that it’s terrifying. Like what actually was going on with that kid? What exactly is the shining? How was Jack Nicholson in that picture? And what the hell was that dude blowing the other dude in the bear costume?

Wait was it a bear costume? I should go look this up right now. Yeah, it was a bear, I was right. Anyways, back to your question, there is a certain tipping point in your procrastination where it goes from brief decompressor to actual major hindrance. One second you’re telling yourself you’ll just play one round of Dots–just a 60 second break–and next think you know half an hour has gone by and you’re on the national Dots ranking for the week. Or you’re suddenly in the millions on Temple Run. Do people still play Temple Run? I think there’s new versions out now, but to be honest that games gave me headaches so I stopped playing. I also play a lot of Bubble Wars, but I don’t think too many people do that. It’s basically like Bubble Spinner but in app form.

But back to what I was saying, you just have to be careful to limit yourself to only a few minutes of procrastination per few hours. Figure out a ratio that works right for you–as long as it involves you actually getting work done. You don’t want to set up a schedule that’s basically one step forward, two back. Wait hold on a sec I have to find a good song to play. I put “kanye west” in my iTunes search bar, but I have literally 171 songs under the “kanye west” filter and some of those are things he produced but I also have this weird mash thing with Pharrell and most of it isn’t that good. I should make a new playlist now of just the Kanye stuff in the Kanye filter. Like I don’t need to be inundated with Amber Rose every time shuffle decides to play off the G.O.O.D. Ass Mixtape.

What happened to Amber Rose? She was pregnant, wasn’t she? Did she have the kid already? I should check Perez. Oh god no Perez is the worst, let’s just go to People. Ooh Kate Middleton’s hair is so pretty. Wait she has grays!? Omg somehow that makes her even more perfect. Ok real talk: who out there in the nation is watching Dancing With The Stars? Who is making us stuck with this programming? Is it the same person watching Two And A Half Men? How did we let this happen, America?

Like I was saying, you have to make your choices very carefully when you open up your computer. If you don’t have your own reserves of self control, you can download it! Seriously, SelfControl will save your life–and your night of sleep. Download it. Use it. Set literally everything as blocked. Then in two years it’ll be really funny to look back and see what you seriously had to block at one point. I wonder what’s on my blacklist. Let’s see, the usual–Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter–the “Christmas shopping counts as procrastinating stop telling yourself otherwise”–Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom, Bloomies–the kinda news–IndieWire, LATimes (oh I do procrastinate on that crossword puzzle a lot), NYTimes, Vogue, Gawker–then the embarrassing–Thought Catalog, RapGenius, Met Opera, Betches Love This, that old blog I wrote for in high school? Jeez self, you’ll do anything to procrastinate, won’t you?

So yeah, watch yourself. Because in truth you can procrastinate using just about anything. Like, you can put your computer in another room and lock your phone up and still find yourself wandering around campus with a book in hand instead of sitting in 210 and reading it. Even though you know it’s in your best interest to just sit down and get your work done, you’re still prone to procrastinating because, unfortunately, humans are fallible and, especially in college, we do a lot of things that we know are wrong and unhealthy and bad for us. But we’ve also grown into this society of instant and often personalized gratification, so we have to find a way to re-train ourselves to focus and get things done. Otherwise we’ll grow up as adults who sit around watching cat videos all day and getting nothing done. I think there was a New York Times article about that a few years ago. Ok I’m finding like a hundred other articles about procrastination and cat videos instead of the actual one I want to see. Give me a few minutes, it’s really good, it’s totally worth it, just a few more minutes.

I can find it. I swear I can.

It’ll only take a minute. Just another minute.

Wait did you see that hilarious new trend piece? College boys suck in bed and the Times is ON IT.

Omg, have you seen this video?

Oh I found the article! I told you it’d just take a minute…or thirty.

What do you mean you have to go do work? I’m “wasting your time”? Oh fuck off. No–wait–I just need to show you this one more thing—

omg no way becky said whatttt????? via Shutterstock