BOOK STACK

Finals week is upon us here at CU, which means that students all across campus are now utilizing their years of education and highly developed problem solving skills in order to come up with excuses to avoid studying. As a senior, I can safely say that I’ve become an expert on the subject. A black belted master in the art of putting things off, if you will. Heck, I’m even procrastinating right now by writing this blog instead of working on my English portfolio!

Now, I would never recommend procrastination to any student. It’s a dark, treacherous road that can lead you to drink your own bodyweight in Red Bull as you frantically write a twenty-page paper or devour an entire textbook in one night. And when you do finally emerge from your room the next morning to take your exams with blood-shot eyes and without having showered, your hair might be reminiscent of Albert Einstein, but the quality of your work: not so much.

It may not be the wisest approach, but for those of you who are determined to make the  “last minute” the FIRST minute, here are a few timeless methods of procrastination:

BROOM

Cleaning

Have you ever noticed that the closer you get to an important deadline, the messier your house seems to become? Cleaning is a time-honored excuse to stubbornly ignore any time frame. You can sweep, vacuum, and make a point to pick up all the clutter in your room that you literally did not even notice was there for the entire semester. Really, how could you even think about studying when there are dirty dishes in the sink? For those of you who are really serious about avoiding study-time, I direct your attention to your long-neglected bathroom.

Over-Organizing

This strategy is terrific because you can actually waste time while figuring out how to save it. Write out a list of everything that you need to do, and spend hours refiguring the order and how much time that you’ll need to spend on each item to optimize efficiency. This will allow you to spend tons of time thinking about your schoolwork, without ever actually having to do any of it. This can also include looking up your GPA and recalculating it based on every single grade that you could possibly get on your exams.

Facebook

Facebook: The granddaddy of all time-sucks. As deadlines approach you may suddenly find yourself with the insatiable urge to look up random people from your high school that you’d either completely forgotten, or couldn’t care less about a week ago. This time of year also lends itself to a special variety of statuses from your fellow students: the bemoaning of excessive workloads, the desperate cries for help, the bold declarations of accounts being deactivated until the end of the week, or even the posts by sadists from others schools who announce that they’re already finished. Out of any time of the year, finals week is perhaps the zenith for Facebook humble-brags: “Can’t believe I got all A’s this semester! Totes thought I’d fail everything lolz!” If you’re in the market to waste some serious time, then look no further.

Desktop

Obsessively Checking Your Email

Hey, who knows? Maybe your professor will send out a last minute email cancelling the final exam to opt for a pizza party instead!  It’s bound to happen sometime, right?

Random Internet Surfing

What can start out as a short study break can often turn into a perilous spiral of Youtube watching with no end in sight. No mere mortal could resist clicking on a video of a kitten in a grocery bag, or avoid the temptation of re-watching music videos from their childhood: Why study Shakespeare when you can study Shakira?

Shakira

You soon may find yourself on sites like Tumblr, StumbleUpon, or even, in true desperation, looking up the pages of random actors on IMDB. (There’s really no good reason other than advanced procrastination to be looking up the filmography of the guy who played Carlton on “Fresh Prince.”)

Cooking Elaborate Meals

Eating on its own can be a great form of procrastination; just think of how much time you can waste by walking back and forth between your room and the kitchen for a sip of water and another handful of Cheerios. But to actually take the time to prepare a series of extravagant, three-course meals? That can really help you put the “pro” in procrastinator. While cooking, be sure to use as many dishes and pans as possible; that way you’ll be able to use up even more valuable time as you thoroughly clean up the kitchen afterwards.

Convincing Yourself That Passing Doesn’t Matter

Hey, you can tell yourself, Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg never finished school, and now they’re both multi-billionaires who use champagne as toilet water and take bubble baths in caviar (or at least they could if they wanted to). Even Kanye West was a “college dropout” and he got a best-selling record out of it, plus he gets to interrupt awards shows whenever he wants! When you look at it that way, you might actually be doing yourself a disservice by studying.

Banging Your Head Against the Wall

Giving yourself a panic attack while the clock ticks away is counterproductivity at its finest. You can successfully waste hours of precious time before your exams by violently cursing yourself for wasting hours of precious time before your exams. Warning: Screaming into a pillow and banging your head against the wall might seem like a smart way to alleviate stress, but you’ll probably have a tough time getting your security deposit back with all of the new head-shaped dents in your room.

PO

If you actually want to do well on your exams, I would highly suggest that you view all of this as a list of what NOT to do during finals week. Procrastination is fun and all, but why not put it off  ’till later? All right, I’d better stop procrastinating myself and finish this blog so I can get back to studying…Though maybe I’d better check my email one more time first…