The laments of a habitual procrastinator

I entered the weekend with so many great intentions. I finally had the weekend off with minimal extracurricular activities. No stories to cover, no big social gatherings to attend. Just two days to chill and catch up on all the things I had been meaning to take care of. I was going to work on a project that had been sitting idle for weeks and finally make some progress on the stack of books that has been piling up next to my desk. Maybe stop ignoring Duolingo and get back into the swing of studying. The world was my oyster.

Instead, I found myself waffling on the Dark Playground. Years ago, during my freshman year in college, I found an interesting article on procrastination. Ironically enough, I discovered it while, you guessed it, I was procrastinating. I won’t get into the whole thing here, but something that has stuck with me after all these years was an idea he dubbed “the Dark Playground.”

The Dark Playground is the bane of all procrastinators. You know when you are just doing random things instead of what you should be doing but you get almost no enjoyment out of those activities because of the guilt and relative low value of entertainment they provide? That’s the Dark Playground. Scrolling through social media, going down an endless rabbit hole of YouTube videos, scouring through the career stats of Rickie Weeks to see if he was actually as bad as people say. All chief examples of behaviors of someone currently on the Dark Playground.

I hate being in these states. Strangely enough, I think I struggle with it much more when it comes to spending my free time than with work. Which is a good thing, I suppose, but it is still frustrating.

Part of the problem, I think, is that I often don’t want to commit to an actual entertaining activity because I’m worried about the amount of time I will stick into it. For example if I start reading, will I get sucked into the book and just spend my whole day reading? And then my free time will be gone without having completed any of the other things I wanted to do. So which of the many things that I want to do should I take on first? Frozen with indecision, I’ll pull up an ESPN article or a YouTube video to spend the time while I try to make up my mind.

Unfortunately, one article or video will lead to another and suddenly I’ve wasted two hours comparing the on-base-percentages of NL secondbasemen in 2011 or getting some random internet person’s opinions on why the sixth Harry Potter movie is the worst one. Do I really care about any of these things? I mean, I must have, at least a little, right? But certainly not to the extent of actually actively seeking these things out.

It’s the sense of wasted time that creates the feelings of resignation and guilt while procrastinating on the Dark Playground. You are doing things that “should” be entertaining, but the mere knowledge that you are procrastinating sucks out any enjoyment you could be getting out of the activity.

I will say that, after reading the article and becoming more aware of the function of these activities in my life, I’ve been more conscious of getting away from the Dark Playground before it sucks me in too far. Luckily, I’ll usually catch myself and refocus my energy towards something more productive.

Not always though. This past weekend was a prime example of falling into those habits, realizing what I’m doing, and just continuing to do so anyway. That feeling of reaching Sunday evening having made no progress on my project and only having read three pages of one of my books is not great.

Ah well, such is the life of a procrastinator. I suppose I can take some solace in the fact that I’m better at avoiding it than I was before. Maybe sharing this knowledge can help my fellow procrastinators in the future. Knowing is half the battle.

Plus, it’s possible my semi-extensive knowledge on Rickie Weeks’ stats will come in handy someday. Just don’t tell me the odds on that one.

A C ertain Point of V iew