The Art of Procrastination, by Jenn

Lately I have found that the only way for me to get things done is to schedule time for it. So today I scheduled time to sort through my clothes and clean my room. I want to get everything organized before I go to Costa Rica so when I come back I can actually enjoy my summer instead of having a messy room that I will have to pack up hanging over my head.

However, my room to me is like a candy store to a kid. It has all kinds of amazing and useless things in it. So far today this what I have done:

1. Sorted through the clothes in my first 5 drawers. The 6th drawer I couldn't reach while laying on my bed, so I didn't get to that one.

2. Had brilliant idea of putting all of my dirty clothes in my laundry basket and clean clothes on my bed. Discovered that my laundry basket was filled with fancy dresses. Tried them all on. Danced around my room to test twirlability of each dress.

3. Skimmed the book on writing a book in a month. Got overwhelmed.

4. Found my journal that has all of my future short story titles in it and tried to determine if any of them could be turned into a book. Decided that short story titles really can only one day become short stories. Thought about writing a book of short stories. Wondered if that would qualify for writing a book in a month.

5. Doodled images of owls.

6. Sharpened a new number 1 pencil, "just in case."

7. Found a half drank bottle of root beer (diet). Tasted it. Flat and warm, just the way I like it.

8. Looked for motivation under my bed. Instead found a kit that teaches one how to make friendship bracelets. Thought about making one. Decided against it. Remembered that I had a kit that would teach me the art of Chinese brush painting. Looked for that. Found it on the top shelf of my closet. Too high up to reach and my chair was covered in stuff, so instead I read a few short stories in a book of short stories.

9. Stripped the sheets off my bed, then took a short nap on the bare mattress.

10. Made a "Cleaning Playlist" for my iPod. Synchronized my iPod. Listened to Playlist. Didn't like it. Rearranged the order. Resynched. Liked it.

11. Spotted the belated birthday present I bought for my roommate Liz. Wrapped it so it looked like a cupcake using only tape and tissue paper.

12. Started sorting through my mail. Then started reading my mail. Read the March issue of Martha Stewart Living. Remembered that the only reason why I get Martha Stewart Living is because Blueprint was cancelled. Got annoyed. Read back issues of Blueprint.

13. Remembered a conversation I had with a colleague about whether or not is was environmentally responsible to travel by stretch hummer instead of a cab. Researched the MPG of a stretch hummer and compared it with the MPG of an ordinary Boston cab. Calculated that our stretch hummer which was used to transport 20 people from EF to the restaurant used twice as much gas as one cab would have. However, one cab couldn't hold 20 people, so we would have needed 5 cabs, so in the end we saved .3 gallon of gas by taking the stretch hummer.

14. Realized it was 5pm and that my room was actually messier than when I started, my bed was unmade, and that I had wasted over 5 hours of my time. Wrote this post.

THE END