Sydney Life

Right now, I am sitting at my computer, staring blankly at the screen. Waiting for inspiration. The first chapter of my thesis is due on Friday, and at the moment, it resembles a skeleton. The bones (the ideas, if you’ll indulge my metaphor) are there, but the meat (the actual work) is AWOL.

Of course, it’s entirely my fault. Guilty as charged. I have known about this deadline for two weeks, when my supervisor and I figured out a timeline for the rest of the year. But deadlines are difficult to keep when you spend one weekend at a movie marathon, the following week procrastinating as much as possible (I even thought about cleaning my car – can you believe it?), and the next weekend…well, actually, I did put some hard work in this weekend. But it was panic-induced, and it definitely needed to be done.

So, I have devised a plan.

Some people go on diets to try to lose weight. Some people try to stop overspending in order to save money. I, however, have decided to budget my time so that I can actually get my thesis written. (Right now, the mark is irrelevant. The fact that I will get it written by October will be my Everest, believe me.)

In my frequent cyber-stumblings (when you are procrastinating, it’s amazing what you can find on the web…and I didn’t even go near the porn!) I found “Oprah’s Boot Camp Personal Commitment.” Oh yes – she’s nabbed child molesters, she’s given away millions, and now, she’s burning thighs like the ropes at a high school gym. In this “Personal Commitment,” devotees of Oprah and her personal trainer’s fitness program can sign up for three months of torture, involving no white bread/flour/potatoes/rice, eight workouts a week and other forms of unusual cruelty. The silly participants sign their own personal contract, because, like Oprah says, “the promise you make with yourself, is the promise you break with yourself.”

Although I wasn’t exactly sure what the Big O meant by this, I was inspired by the idea of a “personal contract.” I was in trouble: I’d been blaming my “faulty alarm clock” for the fact that I’d been waking up (without fail) at 10am each day; I was obsessed with crosswords, painting my nails and searching my Mum’s recipe books for the perfect Anzac biscuit recipe (which I still cannot find); and I had developed an unhealthy allergy to stationery and computers.

So I am taking a stand. I am no longer content to live life the Scarlett O’Hara way (thinking about it tomorrow.) I have written my personal contract, and now that it is public property, it’s not just a promise I make and break with myself. You are all my witnesses, and I am at your mercy.

LAUREN’S PROCRASTINATION CONTRACT

I, Lauren, will no longer waste my time doing any of the following:
- Googling my name, or the names of everybody I know
- searching the fridge for food that is very clearly NOT IN THERE (ie chocolate croissants)
- watching endless, mindless television shows (eg that silly ice-dancing show)
- attempting to use the washing machine (but succeeding only to flood the laundry with unexplained bubbles)
- trying to play my own version of Six Degrees of Separation with the Internet Movie Database
- asking my brother (and other associated members of my family) what they are doing on a sixty-second rotational basis
- arranging the books on my bookshelf in alphabetical order (or by the order in which they were written, or by my order of preference, or by genre…)
- writing blogs about procrastinating