differo [delay]

Welcome again to the realm of procrastination. Don't worry if you're reading this instead of doing homework or some other responsibility you ought to attend to...because that is exactly the circumstance under which it is written!

I'm not sure if I have justified my procrastination on here before, though.  It's definitely been mentioned before, but not necessarily justified...

So why not justify it now?

But first, a brief history of my relationship with procrastination:

The thing about procrastination is that it is just so natural.  It just happens, and I was therefore exposed to it at a very early age.  In fact, it's healthy for young kids to go out and play and not do homework day in and day out.  Back in the gradeschool days, putting homework and projects off in order to live a happy, healthy childhood is hardly seen as the vice of procrastination. Indeed there are many people advocating for more childhood play time like recess and minimizing the amounts of homework that young kids have to do. They promote these things under the guise of better well-being, mental and physical health, social and attention skills, and just general happiness. We should probably take these things more seriously.

Anyway, early on life was filled with petty procrastination that coagulated every now and again into late-night science fair projects and history presentations.  You know, the kind that you helped your parents procrastinate until the night before it's due, even though you've known about it for at least a month.

This foundation gave way to middle school, where procrastination became revered as an important skill.  I boasted my abilities as a self-proclaimed "pro-crastinator" (I did indeed crastinate professionally) and juggled my classes using many late nights and productivity diluted by social media and instant messaging.  It of course only got worse the more I got away with it. Good times.

In high school, I added the skill of more constant sleep deprivation to this aspect of life.  There was also more of a shift in these years as my responsibilities were put off, not in order to play outside or indulge in frivolities, but because of the sheer load of productive things I was requiring of myself.  This included normal responsible things like a ton of classes, as well as more fun activities like soccer, lacrosse, and choir.  I definitely don't regret any of it, but it meant that many nights I wouldn't get home until 9 or 10 pm, and then I could get started on homework.  I quickly learned how to spend nights cycling between naps and homework, how to cram productivity into the wee hours of the mornings, and how to maximize the use of down time traveling or at practices and rehearsals.

Things in college are, of course, much different.  I don't have such a varied load anymore, in terms of my extra-curriculars and all.  I've largely switched out the structured sports and music for an intense class load and involvement in a handful of related clubs.  I'm still in the category of procrastinating not for fun, but out of necessity to get more pressing assignments done first, even when that means putting off another important task.  But developments such as these have introduced a new justification for my procrastinations.

Mostly because my responsibilities are so focused on one aspect of life (engineering homework...and nothing else), my need for constructive breaks -- things like exercise, hobbies, and maybe even the occasional social encounter -- can much more often fall under the category of  'for sanity' rather than 'for fun'.  Not sure if this is an improvement.  It can be hard to do these things regularly, both due to the schedule and the fact that I get anxious sometimes if I'm not actively working on homework.  But it's still something that is important to me, to do as often as possible.

Because of that, when I find myself with a smidgen of free time (read: non-panicked time; time where I have more than I will need to accomplish the tasks that are due immediately), I have an important decision to make: I can either take advantage of this time and use it to get ahead on things so that they won't be so stressful later on, or I can actually do something fun, as if to treat it as actual free time.

Usually the level of my motivation is the deciding factor here.

But when the motivation doesn't automatically tell me what to do, I can justify it with some logical thinking.

I know that things like homework are going to get done.  There is no way that those things will get pushed off indefinitely and just never get done. They have deadlines and consequences imposed by outside forces.  So the question is not if they will get done, but when.

Now, in terms of using time, I could use two hours to my enjoyment through reading or exercise or something of the type, and then spend two hours doing homework.  I could do both of those activities in any order that I want, and at the end of the day, I will have spent two hours on each.  It's a pretty good deal.  So if they both get done, there's really not much importance as to which goes first.

Because I know that the homework will get done but my hobbies or other tasks of secondary priority don't have the same guarantee, it seems perfectly logical to do things like write or meet up with friends or kick a soccer ball around for a while when I know that there will be adequate time to do the homework later.

Mind you, this doesn't happen often, so I feel even more justified in justifying it.

Plus it gives me an opportunity to show myself that I am more than just a homeworking robot engineering student, which is an important feat.

So we give procrastination a bad rap.  It can very easily become a vice and rob you of time and opportunity, but I think that if it is used with control, it can become a tool of sorts to balance priorities and time management and personal well-being.  It is important to spend time productively, and to spend down time wisely, not vapidly.  You can probably judge whether your procrastination is justifiable by whether or not you make any personal gains from whatever you've done instead of working on that long to-do list we all have.

Whether you decide to tackle your tasks head on or procrastinate productively, don't ever stop living the most that you can.

After all, "time you enjoyed wasting is not wasted time." 

-Marthe Troly-Curtin

astutia

Let's talk about a different kind of public education for a moment. Hopefully this is maintained as but a moment...because I can get pretty passionate about the standard of education the public tends to uphold.

But first, a quick exposé on a dangerous substance that can be found virtually everywhere:

This chemical is found in overwhelming quantities in our oceans, is used on all crops, is found in the brains of cancer patients and the lungs of smokers. It is used in all vaccines. It was responsible for the sinking of the Titanic. And the government is allowing for it to be piped directly into your home.

In case you haven't gotten the joke already, dihydrogen monoxide (DHMO) is simply the long way of saying H2O, which is water.  You can educate yourself more about it here.

I find this little hoax amusing, to be honest, mostly because it is harmless.  If people actually get scared enough about all of the dangers of DHMO, it only takes twenty seconds and a google search for them to learn what it actually is.

That's the catch, though...you have to get your information from a reliable source.  And dhmo.org may look authoritative on the subject, but it's not really going to give you scientific answers in a neutral light.

This is obviously an instructive metaphor for things that are of a much less harmless nature.

There will always be some agency or individual out there, especially on the interwebs, spreading information about corrupt politicians or whether a certain substance or practice is harmful.  There are plenty of controversial things in the world, and no better place to blow them out of proportion than the internet.  But the internet can also be a great tool for education. And if more people were willing to educate themselves based on well-executed research rather than getting information through facebook campaigns, well-angled media, and manipulative corporations, I think we would be able to make better societal progress toward appropriate solutions.

Obviously, you can find just about whatever you are looking for on the internet.  Need an article to villainize renewable energy? Not hard to find. And one to praise it as the only solution? Also a simple find.  We need to be able to determine what we can accept to be true.

One of the best ways to sort things out of a scientific nature is to look for peer-reviewed articles.  These can easily be found using the filtered search engine, Google Scholar, which filters results to include only scholarly articles that are peer-reviewed and published by experts in the field.  This means that research was conducted and analyzed using approved scientific methods, and then the procedures, results, and conclusions were reviewed by multiple experts in the field for accuracy and quality before being published.  All of this establishes great scientific authority on the topic.  These articles can be long and very technical, but all of them include an abstract that can usually be viewed free (whereas the actual article may be in a journal that requires a subscription) and that abstract is a simple summary of what is in the article. This can give you a better idea as to what the science behind the topic is actually saying.

Of course, even peer-reviewed scientific articles cannot establish absolute truth alone; one of the quickest discoveries of any scientist is just how much we don't know.  Therefore it is important to also search for scientific articles that might support opposing points of view or related topics.  While this may not resolve the controversy, it can help you know what we do know, what we don't know, and what we are trying to do to figure it out.  It will help you sort out the fact from the fiction from the yet-inconclusive theories surrounding the topic.  And these generally have higher authority than whatever facebook story or infographic started the controversy.

Peer-reviewed articles are not the only reliable source, especially depending on the topic.  There are many websites with significant authority concerning the information they share, including .gov and .edu sites.  These suffixes mean that the web page is published by a governmental organization or an educational institution and generally are required to practice good information techniques and present information in a neutral light.  Websites published by organizations (.org),  commercial entities (.com), and anyone who can buy a domain name (.info) are under no obligations with regard to the quality or type of information they choose to supply.

When it comes to news sources, it can be more difficult to find a reliable, neutral source that will provide the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.  Because of this it is important to do thorough research (especially on social or political issues) and gather as many articles as possible from different sources--liberal, conservative, public, private, even local and international. This will help you know what information is most reliable. The information is more likely to be reliable if it is found in multiple sources, especially sources coming from various angles.  You can also look for primary sources such as interviews with public figures or actual quotes from documents, speeches, and so on.  Having a broad array of news sources can also help you interpret the information better.  Many sources will lead the story into a certain conclusion depending on the views and goals of those presenting as well as their primary audience. This is not inherently a bad thing. Reading reports from various sources can help you gain multiple perspectives and consider the issue in ways you might not normally do so, for example on a local versus global scale.  Having a deeper understanding of the issue and its multiple sides will then help you draw a better conclusion as to what is true and what is the best thing to do.

These practices won't protect you from ever being misled about something, but it will make it much less likely for you to engage in a meaningless argument on the internet where neither party can separate fact from opinion.  It can also help you be a more well-informed and critical reader of the things that you see online and in the news.  Most of all, I hope it helps people to open their minds to new evidence and ideas, to be willing to say they were wrong about something, and to be willing to discuss controversy civilly and move toward a solution and a compromise.

So, next time you find some surprising information on your facebook feed or in the news, please take a quick moment to do some research before sharing, commenting, or otherwise reacting.  You may find out that the terrifying chemical found in all autopsies is really...just water.