Wednesday 28 November 2012

The road to hell is paved with plastic pockets

The list of methods available to the dedicated procrastinator are endless. Today the growing, spreading, and, I believe, breeding piles of notes on my desk crossed the threshold that demanded action. Not content with merely irritating me, they began to slide and attack me. The anthropology notes were all jumbled in with the psychology notes, and produced a book about cross-cultural psychology that I had no recollection of borrowing from the library.

While tempted to leave them be and see whether they produced an entirely new field of academic study when left to their own devices, I was determined that I wouldn't be buried alive or bested by piles of paper and plastic pockets; I took action. I whipped out my trusty accordion files and ruthlessly segregated the lot, now safe between protective plastic barriers and no longer able to torment me.

While notes are useless if left to compost down without ever looking at them again, and some sense of organisation is essential, I've also decided that spending an hour sorting them elegantly and neatly is just a way to give myself a tremendous sense of productivity and accomplishment, without actually achieving anything. It's a dangerous way to procrastinate, because it feels like work, and it's something to do with uni. Ergo, I've been doing uni work. It's also a slippery slope! This decision that spending hours sorting notes is actually a waste of time now has me pondering whether to get an in-tray/out-tray, where I might procure one, or whether to use separate files for each subject. I'm wasting even more time considering what the optimum filing system might be, and writing a blog about it all, extending the procrastination period exponentially. 

I'll let you know how my new "shove it all in a draw until the holidays/the draw collapses" system works out.

2 comments:

  1. RoFL!

    Love this ... but also admire your perspective.

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