When I was in High School, my Dad would always tell me to get work done right away so I could enjoy my time, free of the burden of a long to-do list. He would push me to start my papers early, to work a little bit at a time, or power through all of my assignments before I could waste my time on the internet or play video games.
As soon as I was in university, I took the opposite approach. My school life quickly became a game of “how close to the deadline can I start this paper”. I soon became somewhat famous for my abilities to hammer out lengthy papers with very little time to spare. I had a system: if the paper was less than five pages, and due at 4:30pm, I would start it the same day; if the paper was it was 5–15 pages long, I would start the night before; and if the paper was over 15 pages, I would give myself two days, although that time would often get compressed as well. I once wrote sixteen pages of a 25 page paper on Canadian military capabilities and development in four hours. I was known in the politics department as the guy who would show up at 4:29pm, one minute before deadline, huffing and puffing from sprinting across campus after having just printed. They would wait for me on deadline days. I was never late, and I never got less than a B.
My friends couldn’t understand how I didn’t lose my mind during my paper writing time. They couldn’t figure out how I didn’t collapse under the stress, and how I could bear to know that with a day left, I hadn’t started a paper. They didn’t realize that for me, the writing was the stressful part. It didn’t matter when the deadline was. If I gave myself more time to write, I would pore over every word I wrote, and question every choice I made. If I waited, I could just let the words flow. I didn’t have time to berate myself about how poorly I might be writing. I just wrote.
My Dad and I would talk several times a week on the phone. He would always ask me about how school was going, and my standard answer was to say that everything was “fine.” Then he would ask me what I was working on. It was like he knew that I hadn’t started that paper I had mentioned being assigned a couple weeks before. “When is it due?” he would ask. “Tomorrow,” I would answer. “I’ll let you get to it then,” he would say.
Those words always propelled me to write. He would give me a kick in the right direction. We would talk about the topic, and based on what I already knew I would give him a brief about what I might write. Then I would write until four in the morning. It always sucked if I had to fall asleep with more to write.
Maybe I just didn’t have the willpower to work without a deadline. Or maybe I just enjoy the rush of the ticking clock. My procrastination carries over to every element of my life. If a form needs to be handed in, it is always just on deadline. Projects and messages for friends are put to the last possible second, and I always show up just barely on time for things. I have never been late, until today.
Today my chronic procrastination caught up with me, as I was presented with hurdle after hurdle on my way to hand in a paper. I turned off my alarm in my sleep, or I must have, because I woke twenty minutes later than I intended. Because I always give myself maximum sleeping time, this was the catalyst for the following chain of events. I skipped breakfast, obviously, and this always makes me have a bad day. The bus I got on had a driver who decided to turn down the wrong street once we got downtown. I got off the bus three blocks away from where I normally get off.
Then I ran.
I was almost blacking out by the time I got to school; I have a tendency to run too hard. Wheezing, I asked someone already logged into a computer if I could print from it. One printer was out of toner. The other one, not plugged in. Game over.
My procrastination finally made me late. I lost the game I thought I had been playing so elegantly and with such skill. I had no one to blame but myself. When you’re running on tight schedules with looming deadlines, doing a little bit of work at a time is sometimes a good idea.
I may not have my Dad around anymore to remind me not to procrastinate, but I still hear his voice in my head every time I start writing a paper within hours of a deadline. Maybe I’ll even take his wisdom to heart one of these times.
Or I’ll keep using those words to push me when I hit crunch time.
I kind of enjoy the pressure.