Procrastination, we’ve all been there. We juggle so many different things and sometimes we drop the ball. It sneaks up on us and affects us all and who better than to explain the stages of procrastination than the Scranton branch of Dunder Mifflin?
This is how it all starts. You have your assignments and begin to figure out a game plan. Looking ahead and realizing when you need to complete everything and how you’re going to do that is the first step. Seeing that you have “plenty” of time to finish everything gives you confidence and you decide to “treat yo' self” for tackling the first step. Even though you didn’t actually do anything.
Next, you being to work on each task. Naturally, you start with the easiest one first. After writing one paragraph, reading two pages or finishing a few problems you convince yourself that you’ve put in enough work for the day and it’s time to relax.
You start working again but you don't really make much progress. Your textbooks are open, your notes are organized and your computer is on, but all you're really doing is ignoring them while you juggle between Twitter, Snapchat and Netflix. Hours into your "studying" you realize you haven't done anything and try to start again.
After you have continued your trend of doing the bare minimum each day and tricking yourself into believing you actually accomplished something, the due date has approached. And then all of a sudden the realization sets in that you have two days left to finish all your assignments. Plus, go to school, work, sleep and eat.
Frantically, you rush to finish all your essays, projects and assignments. Caffeine becomes a necessity as you scramble to find any way to help you complete your work in time.
Even though you try your hardest, you drop some of the things you needed to do.
In the midst of all the chaos, you start to pretend that is everything is fine. You try to pretend that you don’t have looming assignments and missed deadlines and start to feel a weird, unexplained peace- even though you know you're only fooling yourself.
However, your “pretend peace” worked and was just the motivation you needed to finish the rest of your assignments. You now have the energy to complete your game plan and you can see the finish line nearing.
Finally, you finish. You may not know what you just wrote or what you just read, but you’re finished.
But hey, you’re done. You completed everything, or almost everything, and right now you don’t care if you’re not 100 percent sure what you just turned in. You’ve finished and it’s time to celebrate.
