Confessions of a serial procrastinator

One of my favourite things to do is to browse through Pinterest and saving the pretty pictures or ideas to my various boards. So one day I came across the following quote and whoa, I think it describes me perfectly.

This is so me.

I’m a self-confessed procrastinator and a serious one at that. I’ve been like this since young and I remember I was always putting off my homework and school assignments till the last minute. And yes, I’m also the type of student who starts studying for an exam only three or four days before the exam date. You know the teachers at school are always saying you should revise your work regularly so that you needn’t spend too much time cramming for exams at the end of the semester, right? Well, I’ve never had it in me to do that. I was disciplined enough to study for my tests and exams but just not in the prepare-in-advance way. There had been several occasions when I couldn’t finish studying in time and the stress of pulling all-nighters was horrible. Even now I feel a tad bit uneasy thinking about those few times when I ran out of time to study. I have no idea why I’m always putting myself in such unnecessary situations. For some reason I just can’t start working on stuff early, even if I have plenty of lead time to do whatever that I need to do. I used to think perhaps I function better under pressure since everything almost always gets done but I suspect this might just be a sorry excuse for a bad habit.

Yep, this is what I do.

As what the quote says, my life is a constant battle with procrastination. Now that I’m unemployed, I’m determined to make full use of my time and start working on some projects. The problem is, I know what I want to do but somehow the tasks seem to accumulate to a point where they become further and further away from completion, just like a never-ending to-do list where none of the tasks ever gets checked. Below are some of the things in my to-do list and needless to say, they’ve been there for a while now.

1. Start a to-do list in a journal
To-do lists are a great start for a procrastinator, correct? Except that I haven’t even worked up enough motivation to start working on this.

2. Start on my polymer clay crafts project
I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve always wanted to try my hands on polymer clay. I got interested in this during my last jobless stint but I put it off after I started working. I wanted to go back to it but my oven decided to breathe its last breath when I attempted to bake a chiffon cake a month ago. And me being me, it took me several weeks to source for a new oven. I finally placed an order a couple of days ago and the new oven will be delivered next Monday. But first, I’ll need to order some clay accessories from Taobao and Etsy before I can begin, which is something that I haven’t done yet. Sigh.

3. Try out new baking recipes
See point 2. No oven = no baking.

4. Blog about my Bangkok trip
I actually let out a sigh of resignation when I was typing the header. Believe me, I want to do it and I’m actually looking forward to writing it but before I can do that, I need to sort out the photos first. Obviously this is also something that I haven’t got down to doing yet. Are you starting to see what I’m trying to say here?

5. Blog about this post on procrastination
I had this entry planned more than a week ago before National Day and look what happened. I guess at least there’s something for me to strike off from my list now. Small victory!

These are just some examples of what’s going through my head right now. There are so many other things waiting for me to do but in the end nothing is being carried out. Sometimes I feel guilty and I get disappointed with myself for not accomplishing any of the tasks. I seem to know what I should do but I just don’t do it. I read somewhere that this is one of the traits of an INFJ (which I am) so I guess it might have something to do with INFJs’ tendency to overthink things and their anal retentive side. I know exactly what I want but at the same time I want things to be done perfectly, hence the inclination to put things off until I find the right moment and mood to get them done. This in turn develops into the doomed cycle of procrastination.

The endless cycle of procrastination that i get caught in all the time.

It looks like I need to put in more effort and willpower to try to overcome this bad habit of mine. Now please excuse me while I go dig out my journal and start on my to-do list – right after I have my dinner.

Anti-social me

Just the other day my sister bumped into an ex-classmate of mine and the said ex-classmate actually stopped and chatted with her. I was in the same clique with her in the first two years of my secondary school but I’ve not seen her in years. In fact, the last time I saw her was at a class reunion easily a decade ago (oh my, this makes me feel real old). Anyway, she exchanged numbers with my sister (who was too polite to reject her) and wanted us to add her as a friend on Facebook. I received her Facebook friend request shortly after my sister’s encounter with her but me being me, decided to ignore her request altogether.

I know my reaction may come across as strange or even snobbish to some, especially since we were considered quite close back in those days. But I don’t know, these things somehow make me uncomfortable. Adding someone on Facebook isn’t a big deal but when it comes to getting re-acquainted with ex-classmates, I get freaked out for some reason. I think it’s the possibility of that person trying to reconnect with me and wanting to catch up that makes me so adverse to it. I’m perfectly okay not having to meet some of these people again and adding them to my Facebook may just jeopardise this. There are people who relish the idea of catching up with their ex-classmates and rekindling an old friendship or two. There’s nothing wrong with this of course but I can only say I definitely don’t belong to this camp.

Anti-social?
Yup. This probably sums it all up.

As you probably can tell by now, class reunions and gatherings are not my thing at all. I mentioned earlier that I attended one years ago and I have to say it started off pretty well. It was actually quite interesting to catch up with the people whom I’ve not seen in ages and trust me, this says a lot coming from the anti-social me. However, as the night wore on, I came to realise why I dislike such events so much. After the initial hellos and obligatory small talk, most of us simply drifted back to the same group of friends that we’ve been keeping in touch all along. Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of having a class reunion? Why would I need to make it to the gathering just to catch up with my close friends? I don’t get it. And amazingly enough, the so-called popular ones still mingled mainly within their own clique right from the start. You would’ve thought high school was over a long time ago and we had all grown up to become mature and sensible adults.

Anyway, I must clarify that I’m not unfriendly or a snob, it’s just that I don’t like to socialise or engage in awkward small talk unless absolutely necessary. Not sure if any of you get what I’m trying to put across here?