I realized that my style of procrastination is rather formulaic and predictable and, for the most part, it involves doing various online stuff. Before I begin any major paper or work of any sort that I find difficult or boring or both, I do the following (not always in this order):
- check my email
- approve or reject comments made on my blog
- read MyYahoo page and click to read the interesting news items
- check my Google Adsense account
- look at my sitemeter stats
- look for stuff on Craigslist (e.g. free stuff or I help friends if they're looking for something)
- read other people's blogs and occasionally leave comments
- post a blog entry
If that's not enough to get me awake and warmed up, I also do a load of laundry and tidy up the apartment. This is an incredibly lengthy process that takes time away from my work but I just can't help it. So tell me, what is your procrastination routine?
10 comments:
Hey Vanessa!
I absolutely hate writing essays so I have an entire drill.
1) Email.
2) Read NYTimes. Again.
3) Surf Amazon.com
4) Play spider solitaire.
5) Clean up my eyebrows (they are usually scruffy until something is due).
6) Eat whatever junk is lying around my kitchen.
7) Make tea. Sometimes every different kind I have in the house.
I've even cleaned toilets on occasion, and I HATE cleaning. I get pretty desperate.
I'm on my 5th cup of tea right now. Which means I've had to go to the bathroom that many times and I also had to refill the hot water boiler thing.
That sounds exactly like my routine. And when I'm done, I typically decide that I'm too tired to work on whatever it was that I was supposed to have been doing instead.
My typical routine:
1. Check all 10 email accounts
2. Read redflagdeals.com
3. Chat on MSN to confirm deals
4. Shop online as a result of #2
5. Read blogs, stats, comments
6. Write a blog entry
7. Make a snack or meal
8. Take photos of food
9. Explore Flickr
10. Check email accounts again
If I really want to put something off:
- laundry
- vaccuum
- file paperwork
- Chop parsley
- Chop garlic
After chopping garlic, I feel guilty enough to start working.
My work schedule is like that.
- Sit, login to my PC.
- Start up MSN, GoogleTalk.
- Fire up (work) Outlook. (This takes a while to load.)
- Open up Firefox and click on the link that opens all the blogs into separate tabs. (This takes a while to load too.)
- Check any new blog comments.
- Surf MyYahoo! page for news.
- Ponder a next blog entry topic.
- IM some friends who are still online on the West Coast.
- Read Engadget and DigiTimes.
Then I start work.
So where does TV and dancing around to cheesy music fall in place here?
Okay, chopping garlic and parsley wins for uniqueness. Ben, how do you click on one link and open up all the blogs you read in firefox?
Well, the easiest way is to open up all your blogs up in tabs in a single Firefox window. Then the Bookmarks menu has some feature you can do ... I think it's called "bookmark all tabs" or something like that. You just have to do this once, and I put mine in a folder in the bookmarks bar.
So in the morning, I just click on that folder (named "Blogs"), and at the bottom of that whole list of bookmarks is one called "Open All in Tabs" or something similar.
Click. Done. Hurray!
Van, I swear you are my long lost cousin or something. I do something very similar to this every day. Right now I should be firing off paperwork to clients, but no... I'm reading blogs instead. It's just easier this way. Take care!
Blogs, myspace...
Blogs, myspace...
Blogs, myspace...
*bathroom break*
Blogs, myspace...
Blogs, myspace...
...
;)
As for Firefox opening, put all your blogs into a folder, then navigate to that folder and click "Open in Tabs". Wallah! All load up at the same time!
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