The Paradox of Procrastination

It’s a terrible paradox: Right around finals, students suddenly find themselves too tired from the semester to actually get down to business. Swamped with last-minute papers and final exams looming ahead, it is all too easy to succumb to the pleasures of an afternoon nap, the ever-distracting Facebook or the tempting tunes of Beatles Rock Band. The arcade, though sinners ourselves, have some advice for those who really just can’t get their studying act together.

1. Productivity guru Merlin Mann has made his living studying efficiency and gathering so-called “productivity hacks” on www.43folders.com, a Web site dedicated to those who are looking to reclaim their time and attention. One of the best tips on the site is the dead simple “(10+2)*5 procrastination hack.” Essentially, all it asks is that you work productively for 10 straight minutes without pause for a quick Facebook update or any other time sink. Then at the end of the 10 minutes, the hack demands you take a break for two minutes to do anything — watch television, browse photos, surf the web or even eat an entire bag of chips. After the break, you start the cycle again. In five sessions, you’ve just completed an hour of work/play. It sounds dumb and elementary, but it effectively tricks your mind into becoming hyper aware of the way you allot your time. If you use music to study, make a playlist of songs that don’t distract from work for 10 minutes. End the list with a song that is under two minutes — try “It’s Time To Party” by Andrew W.K. By the time the opening guitar riffs grace your ears, you know it’s time for a great break.
2. The Internet is rife with distractions. Last.fm, FML, Wikipedia, Hulu and even e-mail are all reasons that work on the computer can end poorly. But sometimes there are reasons you can’t simply turn off your wireless connection, like needing to find articles for a research paper, and those bookmarks around your address bar are just too damn enticing. Check out www.keepmeout.com. Simply enter the URL of a Web site you visit a little too often, replace the bookmark you currently use with the new one they provide, and it will block you from visiting that site more than once for however long a period you want. It’s not hard to work around the block if you really want to, but it does serve as an efficient reminder of why you aren’t getting your work done.
3. Sometimes even the slightest disturbance can kill an entire work session. Fight noise with noise using www.simplynoise.com. With a choice between white, pink and brown noise, the Web site combined with earbuds blocks out all other sounds with its distractions.
4. Get to work. No matter how many “hacks” you use or Web sites you configure, none of the work actually gets done if you don’t sit down and put in some effort to start. In fact, unless you’ve recently gotten some work done, you’ve probably got something more important to do than turning the page to read the Views section.