Thoughts on Procrastination

There are three groups of people I despise: People who boast of how little they read, people* who constantly talk about how they don’t own a TV, and people who judge others for reasons one and two.

This is not to denigrate not the people who have better things to do with their time than sit on a couch and watch Everybody Loves Raymond reruns, but to call out the pest who thinks himself superior because he watches television on a laptop, not a TV.

That said, I was, up until recently at least, that pest, the type of person who claims that turning off the TV turned on his creativity, that television is pointless if you’re literate, that a TV has been made redundant by the computer: I watch all my shows online, I would say superiorly, defensively, and I can amble over to my friend’s place in case I ever need to watch something live, like this week’s Gossip Girl or the State of the Union address.

This did not start intentionally. The television I owned went on the fritz, and instead of replacing it, I adjusted. (Never buy a Samsung. Approximately two months after my warranty expire, my Samsung stopped producing any images, a defect Samsung apparently knew of, yet found it cost effective not to recall. Secondly, be weary whenever Best Buy offers, say, a Samsung at a reduced price and claims the price is lower simply because Samsung is having a deal. There’s a reason they were having a deal, and that reason was to sell Samsungs to Luddites like me.)

Just recently, I decided I did need a TV. The thing about working from home is that you inevitably need a break from work. For whatever reason, I have a hard time turning off my brain when I turn on my computer. If I write for a few hours and deem myself ready for a recess, I might fire up my computer and watch a television show. Moments later, the laptop on my lap, I’m only half-listening to last night’s 30 Rock while I’m checking my email, thumbing through the After Deadline blog on NYtimes.com, updating my Facebook status, checking to see if my editor has emailed me back, hoping to see if my professor has posted our grades already, reading an article on “5 Ways to Boost Productivity.” Or I would make food, letting the microwave drone out Jack and Liz’s dialogue. My brain always restless, I was less productive. (And I became annoying in everyday conversations. For instance: “Who’s this Billy Mays guy? Oh, he died? How sad... Sorry. I don’t own a TV.”)

So has the television increased my productivity? Not really. I’ve found that no matter what you surround yourself with, you can always find a way to procrastinate.

*Picking on these repetitive cads is nothing new. The Onion did it well enough 12 years ago: http://www.theonion.com/articles/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-tel,429/  


Elliott Krause is a Defunct staff reader and a contributor to Ye Olde Blogge.