Wasting Time

Last year, after my exams, I had 10 weeks of holiday. While that seemed like a godsend at the time, after about 7 weeks, I started to get bored and short of stuff to do. This year, it’s taken me 3 days before I got bored, running out of things to do. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and some serious procrastination is called for.

Procrastination is no doubt a talent, and a talent must be practiced. The 10,000 hours rule dictates that you should practice a skill for 10,000 hours before you are as good as you can be. Procrastination is harder than it looks (although if you are watching someone procrastinate, you should really think about getting on with some of your own), and it’s hard to think of things to do to fill your time with. Over the last two days, I’ve probably done around 10 hours of pretty much nothing, so at this rate it’ll take me between 3 and 4 years to perfect the art, assuming that I can find 5 hours a day of time that I can happily waste. Here are a few things that I’ve done over the past few days.

1. Counting freckles

The past few days have suddenly decided that they want to be sunny, so I’ve spent a lot of them outside, as I’m sure a lot of people have. A week ago, I didn’t have any freckles at all, whereas my current count has rocketed due to sun’s belated appearance. The sudden rise has been the result of my week’s procrastination in the sun, where I have been trying to find the happy medium between being so pale that I’m reflective, and skin cancer. For those of you who don’t get freckles, you can also spend time staring at your face in the mirror, but instead you can spend the time admiring your beautifully tanned complexion. In principle, I hate you.

2.  Watching ‘the other presenter’

TV features as a large part of my procrastination routine. It’s hard to believe that with 900 channels to chose from (minus sky movies, we’re not made of money), that at least one would have something worth watching on. It is of course important to remember that only half of these channels have their own output, and the other half are just showing what their partner channel was showing an hour ago, just in case you missed something that you didn’t want to watch. The other problem is that currently, there are only 3 episodes of Diagnosis Murder on a day. Couple that with the fact that I’ve seen all of them before, (it’s occasionally bearable when you remember who the murderer is, but not when you can practically remember the script) and suddenly that option doesn’t seem appealing either. I have discovered a new way of watching TV though. When programs have more than one presenter, only of them is speaking at a time. The entertainment comes in not listening to the speaker, but watching the other presenter. While the other speaks, they just sit there and stare at you, or even nod along in agreement to the other one. This is well worth trying yourself as if I just describe to you how good it is, it looks like I’m having a break down. Early today I spend quite a lengthy period just watching the newsreader who wasn’t talking. The first time that it even occurred to me that I should get on with something else was when I started hearing news stories that I’d heard before go round the loop again.

3. Writing this

Useless and pointless as this is, at least it takes up time. So far this has taken 20 odd minutes to write, and it would probably take longer if I actually thought about what I was writing, or read through it afterwards instead of submitting it as soon as my internal monologue falls asleep, or at least starts daydreaming. Obviously writing my blog doesn’t account for any of you, but you might want to do something related. Like reading my blog. Admittedly if you’re this far into it, it’s probably too late to turn back.

4. Desperately trying to up your Twitter following

The number of followers you have is purely egotistical. There is barely any point in having thousands of followers, as no one in the world can say anything worth knowing in 140 characters. Then again, there’s no point not having thousands of followers, at least it boosts your pathetic and needy self-esteem. Which is why I want as many followers as possible, so follow me at @i_am_called_ben

There are two reasons why you should do this. Firstly, I follow back, so your tiny boost to my ego will be returned with a tiny boost to yours, even though we both know that in the real world, it means nothing. Secondly, I will feel loved. If you don’t have twitter, you should get it. It’s really good for procrastination. Arguably better than watching people on the news who aren’t speaking.