I’m going to take this moment of procrastination to articulate how deadly technology is for aiding procrastination. In the last year, i’ve been pretty responsible to no one. My one responsibilty has been to V-Day. I’m expected to work 20 hours a week, but i often easily work 30, partially because that job is attuned to my best procrastination habits and thus work feels like procrastinating. An old friend of mine used to wimper about TV being a deadly reason for his prolonged PhD stay. Of course, this sounds like a typical “back when i was your age…” and of course i want to respond to how it is sooo much different now. But it is! Really!

I’ve managed to rid myself of the traditional procrastination tools. Solitaire has been removed from my computer and there is no TV to be found. Plus, i’ve never mastered the clean to procrastinate technique.

But there’s email… well, i have justified that email has work purposes (V-Day only validates this by having the focus of my work day spent on dealing with emails for tech support). Thus, i check email obsessively. *Obsessively.* There are two different accounts. One account has 6 different folders in which email may arrive. The idea was that all list email goes far far away from my INBOX. But what do i do? I check those other boxes in rote rotation. To top it off, i always have my INBOX displayed so that i can see a new little “N” pop up next to a new message. ::sigh::

Of course, IM is just as bad as email, only the relationship between productivity and work is much weaker. Luckily, a simple “i’m working, interrupt if necessary” message often keeps that procrastination tool in line.

Then there are blogs. Reading blogs, writing in blogs, surfing blogs, surfing the links in blogs. Blogs are truly a distraction. You can justify them as learning, or keeping tabs on people’s social behavior or the digital memes. Direct web surfing feels like procrastination; blog surfing feels like you are doing your mind a service. Which you are. You are helping it avoid the task at hand.

Next comes the myriad of sites out there intended for you to come back and surf them out of curiousity, particularly those targeted at making you feel socially relevant. Friendster, neopets, … Cruel. Evil.

Of course, so much of this centers around my Internet Explorer window. In theory, i should not be allowed to open it. But, you know, when you’re writing a paper, well, you *need* Google don’t you??

Next comes my small obsession with any form of data. I fill out surveys to procrastinate. I check my web logs (y’know – the ones that tell you how many visitors you have). I re-analyze any data i’m collecting in databases. (No, no new signups for the conference; yes, organizers are still procrastinating their Follow-ups…) I make certain that all of my book purchases are entered into the DB and that proper, and kind, feedback is left for the seller. Of course, if i haven’t purchased a book in 4 days, i probably surf my wishlist at half.com to see which books are relevant to the currently procrastinated paper. I even redo my finances and try to figure out how i can spend less than i make each month (which is brutally hard in San Francisco, particularly with my half.com habit).

Finally, when all else fails, i remember why procrastination is an essential feature of grad school by reading phdcomics. [Conveniently, this week’s comic is on the sale of research to the military…]