Procrastination

When I was younger, I used to watch The Amanda Show on Nickelodeon. It became one of the many foundations of inside jokes between me and a close friend and heck, if it was still on, I'd probably watch it now. Specifically, there was a sketch in one episode of a superhero called The Procrastinator - basically whenever there was a...thing that superheroes are needed for, her catchphrase was "I'll get to it...EVENTUALLY!"

I've been thinking about that sketch a lot lately. Mainly because this time of year, procrastination is what I do. Exams are dawning, too quickly if you ask me, and where 2 of them I'm pretty confident that I can pass at the very least, one is slowly eating away at me, in that I have no idea how I'll scrape a bare pass, let alone a reasonable grade. I'm talking about cognitive psychology. The bain of my life. And I'm sure many psychology students feel the same when I say that it appears to be the most useless and soul-crushingly difficult area of psychology ever allowed to be declared a field by the BPS.
How do we think? How do we understand speech? How do we organise knowledge? Answer: no one cares. Well, I certainly don't.

I was hoping my revision for this year would go much better than last year - last year, I sat at my desk each day for 3 weeks miserably reproducing mindmaps again and again - and in theory it has. I bought myself a nice little study guide (14 Days to Exam Success - Lucinda Becker) and some fancy ass fineliners and some cards, and things were going well. Right until we went home for the Easter weekend.

The revision timetable I planned did not allow any revision or work to be taken home as it would be my version of a break - I prefer a long break of a few days to 10 minutes every hour - but once I stopped, I really didn't want to start again, so in turn, did a variety of tasks instead of revising:

1. Attempted the challenge of watching Embarrassing Bodies while eating (Nb. I passed - but it was difficult. No one likes to see fat flaps at the best of times, let alone while you're eating).
2. Scanned all of my DVD collection into an app on my phone.
3. Went to work on my usual days and used that as an excuse when I got home.
4. Watched pointless YouTube videos.
5. Refreshed Facebook, Twitter and my e-mail inboxes continuously.

Luckily, I've managed to get back into things, although I'm sure things will stop yet again when I go home for my birthday in two weeks time.