Tomorrow People

Tomorrow People
Ros Thomas
The Weekend West
Published Saturday September 7, 2013

Procrastination is the tiresome friend you wish you’d offloaded years ago. The kind of friend who needles you for being a hopeless ditherer.

Procrastination has been my snarky sidekick since I was a teenager. Back then, it was a slothful habit that turned exams into last-minute cramming sessions and assignments into all-nighters. Finally, high on adrenalin, I’d bash away on Mum’s green Remington until 3am, fingers stained a chalky grey from copious blots and smears of white-out.

Now I accept my ineptitude as a personality quirk. We tolerate each other, procrastination and I, in a spineless sort of way. We both know I still lack the mental grit to make my life more efficient.

I would have written about procrastination earlier, but it never seemed like the right time. Last week, during a sudden cloudburst, I sat down at my desk as the rain pelted down, determined to put procrastination in its place. I flipped open my laptop and up sprang a clean white screen. Through the window, a streak of sunlight skimmed the keyboard. I noticed a layer of dust collecting around the laptop’s hinges.  

An hour later, having dusted the whole house in a fit of pique, I sat back down. I typed five words on the page: Procrastination is my worst enemy. There! A start! But those words rubbed each other up the wrong way with their lumpy rhythm.  I pressed delete and stared morosely as the screen emptied.

Looking up at the bamboo outside my window, I noticed a small cluster of ants gathering at the knot where a leaf branched out from the green stem. I searched the other branches for ant clumps. No, it was just this one hosting peak-hour ant traffic.

Every few seconds, an ant would separate from the clump and begin trekking down the plant, doing the usual meet and greet with another ant making her way up. (Worker ants are always she, Google tells me. Male ants are only good for sex – they laze about in the nest eating and making a mess and getting antsy waiting for their ant-sheilas to get home.)

I killed another half hour googling the study of myrmecology. One scientist was claiming that the weight of all the humans on earth was the same as the weight of all the ants on earth. Ha! Not after I lose five kilos!

Given the chance, I can happily distract myself from serious tasks by trawling the internet. Google is a wormhole in the universe – time accelerates when you’re pfaffing about looking up things you didn’t know you were interested in. Suddenly, it’s lunchtime. How did we waste time before computers?

The next morning, I wake up a day closer to deadline feeling uneasy. I berate myself for wasting yesterday’s free morning on dust and ants, and vow to knuckle down and finish the piece.

Then I spot the laundry bench spilling over with washing to be folded, and two loads of dirty socks and jocks waiting on the floor. A pile of bills is stacked by the phone. What to tackle first? Should I get the house in order or write about procrastination? Determined not to be waylaid again, I wedge my laptop under my arm, march out the front door and head for my local cafe. I tuck myself behind the back table, order a pot of tea and a chicken salad and wait for inspiration to find me.

Why do we allow ourselves to create pointless delays? Delays we know will make us worse off? Procrastination never made anyone happy: it’s a vice, a completely irrational habit. We indulge in it against our better judgement. “For goodness sake, get to work!” I tell myself.

While I fire up my laptop, I notice a young couple in furious discussion at another table. They’re just out of hearing range but I’m fascinated by their body language. I can see she’s on the defensive because she keeps shaking her head and her jaw is clenched. She has her arms folded and is leaning back in her chair. Her partner is pressing his bulk across the table to make his point: he’s jabbing the air with his finger and spitting out his words. I start thinking about Nigella and Charles Saatchi and how mortified she must have been to have him grab her throat in public. Procrastination has me by the throat. Again.

Perhaps stress is the spark I need to ignite my brain. I can’t just switch on my creative neurons at will. I have to be in the mood: preferably last-minute panic.

On the other hand, procrastination might be a necessary evil: it gives us the chance to incubate ideas, to mentally prepare for prize-winning brilliance. It might not be a time-wasting habit at all.

My salad arrives and the waitress points at my computer: “Writer’s block?” she asks with a grin.

“Yep” I sigh, “but I’m planning to be spontaneously brilliant tomorrow.”