Procrastination

Procrastination must be a good thing.

Otherwise it would be called concrastination.

Procrastination Rating Assessment Table

Procrastination requires two factors to be valid: guilt and displacement activity. One knows what one should do, but does something else instead.

I got to wondering whether a scale of such activities might be helpful and informative.

Procrastination Rating Assessment Table

Level	Name	Examples	Narrative
0	Ignoring	Gazing blankly out of the window. Giving up and going to the pub. Basically, refusal to think about the course at all: when it pops in your head, thinking of something else.	Not genuine forms of procrastination.
1	Essential excuses	Making a coffee. Making and eating a meal. Getting washed and dressed.	You could pick up a book and study, or you could do those essential life things. The easiest procrastination.
2	Seeking excuses	Checking the answerphone, checking for post, reviewing the To Do list.	Does someone else need me? If so, it won't be my fault I can't study.
3	Responding	Checking your email, reading others' blog posts, checking the fora.	Reading these things is only done for one reason: to find an excuse to write back and thereby waste some more time - but it will be someone else's fault.
4	Non-essential excuses	Putting the washing on. Unloading the washing. Washing up. Putting the washing up away. A quick dust round. Vacuuming. Again.	Yes, these jobs need doing, but they don't need doing now, do they?
5	Attendance	Tidying your desk. Topping up the stapler. Sharpening the pencils. Re-filling the refillable highlighter pens.	You've run out of excuses so you sit at your study desk. Well, at least you are facing the books and PC. Ignoring them, but doing so in their vicinity.
6	Running away	Deciding you are getting low on Post-Its or the rubber you've had since school might finally wear out this term, so you go to Staples.	Not necessarily a follow-on from level 5, but the gifted procrastinator won't miss this opportunity to waste six hours. (After all, the car could do with filling up and then there's the car wash and I may as well do a shop while I'm out…)
7	Efficiencies	"I would be more efficient if only I my books were organised differently or if I type up, print out, hole-punch and file last year's study notes."	You are so scared of reading a few pages of the text book that you intend to spend hours making irrelevant material (that you cried over last year and swore you would never look at ever again) more accessible.
8	DIY	"I need a shelf on which to put my Pomodoro Timer."	It's getting so bad that DIY is looking preferable, despite living in rented property.
9	Research	Googling "Pomodoro Timer" and searching for time management tips on the OU web site.	Starting a potentially endless task of learning about procrastination and writing about it, even though you already know what to do and there's nothing stopping you from getting on with it.

I can't believe I have actually just scoured and washed the toilet seat rather than start the next chapter of my text book. Is that a Level 10 Procrastination?

Feedback is most welcome. It will give me something to read and respond to, and it won't be my fault…