The Art of Procrastination

or Why it took 7 years to create my urgently needed website

In its simplest form, procrastination is putting off what you have to do. That's easy, you say to yourself, I do that everyday. How do I raise it to an art form? That takes skill. That takes dedication. That takes the kind of single-minded purpose that doesn't allow you to talk to yourself. Instead of simply putting off what you have to do, give it a grand gesture. I won't complete this task until I have every single thing lined up. If it's not perfect, I won't do it. There you go! Now you've set an impossibly high standard that you will never reach, so don't even try. You are completely justified in sitting back and letting whatever you had to do fester like an infected wound.

Now it's a waiting game. How long can you go without trying to finish what you have to do? A day? A month? What the heck, go for a year! Now you're talking! Watch what at one time seemed reasonable to break into bite-sized pieces loom larger and larger in your mind until it is completely unmanageable. Who could expect you to get your arms around that monstrosity? No one, that's who.

Wait a minute! Wait just a minute. I know what I want to do is going to be wildly popular. And if it remains an idea in your head, you never have to experience the let down of thwarted expectations. There is none of that pesky hard work that always spoils your plans. Nobody knows who you are. If you don't start your site, you don't have to work to get clicks and views. You don't have to take time to explain the myriad tips and tricks that you have learned over the years. All that fabulous knowledge will stay securely inside your cranium.

In my case specifically, I am someone who is very disabled but still has all my cognitive abilities. I want to create a site with how-to videos of me instructing my helpers how to transfer me as they are doing it. Great idea, but how do I apply procrastination so I don't have to actually do anything? My first excuse was I only had a cell phone and I did not want to video everything on that. Okay, I got a tablet, but then I needed a holder so I could set up the shot. Those delaying tactics only put things off a few weeks. The real test came once I had everything and it was just a matter of scheduling. I needed a good excuse to put things on hold. Or did i? What's the rush? I told myself. I have all the time in the world. That gem of rationalization kept me on track but stuck in place for a while.

Almost two years later, my landlord gave me notice in mid February that I would have to move by the end of the year. Then the priority shifted to packing 16 years of stuff. Never mind that the people who would help me pack were completely different from the people who would help me shoot the videos. I had a lot on my mind! I cleverly threw my entire timeline out the window when I contracted covid and went to the hospital. After 3 weeks, I transferred to a 24-hour care facility. Perfect! Now I have nothing.

Throw in some mild depression about living in an institution and not having your pet around, and that brings me to where I am currently. Beaten down by life and my illness, there's no way I could even conceive of starting things now. Everyone has their own circumstances, but with a little creativity you can delay anything. You may not be lucky enough to have a chronic degenerative disease or live in a restricted environment like I am, but you can come up with your own excuses for not getting things done.

Remember at the crux of procrastination is a 50 lb ball of denial. Denial is not necessarily bad. It can give you the time you need to deal with a problem. What you want to do is stay obstinately in place and not move forward or grow. Learning from your mistakes would hinder your ability to put things off. Repeat this mantra: I am broken and I can't be fixed. There is no hope. Great! Now you've set yourself up for an eternity of disappointment. Life is hell. Enjoy the show!