The Procrastinator (Part 1)

I scrutinize the mirror as I run the razor carefully through the foam on my face.

It is a face which I’m extremely familiar with. A face that has evolved to what it is today through a combination of genetics and life experience. A face that I, of all people, cannot be objective about.

I’d like to think the face which stares back at me does not look 61 years old (‘Really? I didn’t think you were a day over 40!’ sort of thing). But, as I say, I’m not in a position to judge.

Regardless of this, I see no evidence that this is the face of a procrastinator.

Perhaps there is no ‘look’ that procrastinators have. They could be roaming amongst the general population at any time, and the people around them would be blissfully unaware.

I know at least one of them is roaming around anyway.

Me.

Take today, for instance.

What the hell. Let’s be honest and make that the past two years!

I’ve taken time out from my normal teaching job, with vague aspirations to devote time to writing noteworthy, publishable pieces.

I can see that I have written a lot when I scroll through the files on my laptop. I feel some pride as I register this. But it is all in draft form. I have published little and attempted to publish next to nothing.

Deep down I’m acutely aware of how few hours I average per week systematically writing. On a good day I’ve done 3 or 4 hours; some weeks I have done nothing at all.

Where was I?

Oh, take today, for instance.

As I lay in bed this morning, clinging to precious final moments of slumber, I visualized the day ahead.

I’d climb out of bed in a few minutes time, put a warm top on, grab my black writing book, and go straight to my main writing spot, the dining room table. There I would handwrite my ‘Morning Pages’, 3 pages precisely, in a stream-of-consciousness manner. This would take about 20 minutes. My partner would be showering and getting ready for work while I did this, so my writing would not cut into our time together.

My writing would almost certainly be about the dreams that I had just woken from. This is only because it gives me something to say in my bedraggled state.

The theory of Morning Pages is that they can help open the portals of creativity if done regularly and in that half awake state. Immediately writing about the dreams will somehow help me to be in touch with my artistic side. It can be a bridge between the subconscious and conscious worlds.

I struggle to remember the details of my dreams. There was an obligatory school-related nightmare, riven with that anxiety so typical of my subconscious in recent years. In the dream I am leading a ten-minute Form Class dedicated to marking the student roll and imparting vital daily notices to students. Yet in this dream I skipped the roll marking (I didn’t know the students' names anyway) and started a mini lesson trying to teach them, of all things, about ‘anxiety’!

In my dream I try to elicit a response about what they already understand ‘anxiety’ to be. As happens in life, the most enthusiastic student who offered to respond (in this case, a large soft boy) was completely off the mark with his lengthy explanation. So, I gently tried to move the discussion on. This was difficult. The students were scattered in aisles, separated from each other, like in a supermarket or a state library.

I myself became increasingly anxious as I saw no way of teaching a micro-lesson in ten minutes, reading all notices, and marking that bloody roll.

I wake with a start, relieved immediately that I have been dreaming.

She’s already showering. I had fallen back to sleep and therefore not risen and done my Morning Pages. If we are to have breakfast together, there will be no time for any Morning Pages today.

As the shower stops, my pride kicks in.

‘Be a man’, I mutter to myself.

I quickly get out of bed, grab some sporty clothes, start breakfast preparations, and go for a quick shower myself (mainly to feel human).

No Morning Pages?

No problem.

Plan B, where I exercise for over an hour in a nearby forest (after breakfast and her departure) before having coffee and resetting.

It will be midmorning after I have done this, and I will then commence writing. I will write for several hours and feel great about myself.

But, reader, I am a procrastinator. A serial avoider.

I exercised, in fact, as planned.

This was followed by grocery shopping (yep, not on my 'To Do' list). But we needed groceries, after all. On returning to the house, I noticed the swimming pool filter was not working so ended up spending an hour cleaning it and lifting leaves out of the pool.

Yes. I hear you muttering, ‘First World Problems’, and you are correct. But it had to be done and I’m the only one there to do it.

Exercise. Groceries. Pool Cleaning.

Surely by this stage I have earned a quality coffee, something better than the ‘dirty instant’ no-frills brand in the pantry. How could anybody write well drinking that brew?

With a sense of entitlement uppermost in my mind I drove to my favorite coffee shop to grab a takeaway Flat White coffee.

Bloody beautiful, as imagined.

It was now a few hours later than I had originally anticipated. While I sipped my coffee on the couch at home, I read the Scottish crime novel that I’ve been reading for the past week.

It’s just something I like to do when I’m having my coffee and today is not the day to be changing that routine.

It is now lunch time. It seems pointless to start writing before lunch. I’d just get into it and have to stop. One has to eat regular meals. Besides, my decision to write is a personal decision, right? Nobody is forcing me to do it so if I choose not to, so no harm is done.

Nobody dies or suffers if I don’t write, after all.

Except, perhaps me, for allowing procrastination to slow my achievements down. I probably die a little inside each time I delay facing up to what I need to do.

Reader, you may be able to see the flawed thinking which allows a bad habit to continue.

But I too can see it today. I can see through my self-justification and delaying tactics today. I squirm uneasily, as if I’ve seen my true face in the mirror for the first time.

It is the face of a procrastinator: furtive, unfulfilled and unattractive.

And it annoys me greatly. I’m quite frustrated by myself this time.

‘The game is up, buddy’, I think.

So, at 1.30 p.m., 3 hours after I had originally intended, I actually force myself to write.

Ironically what I produce is this contradictory piece about a procrastinator who is actually not procrastinating.

No Nobel Prize here, but at least I’m practicing the habit of writing today.

There is a glimmer of hope, after all, for those who recognize that they have a problem.

I write.

But I know that I’m not cured.

Look for Part 2.