I've been procrastinating a lot lately.  I want to read a bunch of manga, I have a backlog of games (and anime and TV shows and other such things) that I want to do.  I have been trying to find time to keep on continuing my own personal 4 panel comic idea that I've been mostly doing for my own sense of fun.  I want to scan in some of my hardcopy-only photos from when I was younger and put them on Facebook for the lulz.  And I want to start recording my music and doing some more song writing.  It's all stuff that makes my soul feel alive, you know?

Oh, and don't forget the other seventy-bazillion things that I have to do, from exercise more to do the dishes (that are UNENDINGLY INFINITE-they keep being made no matter how many I do), to folding my clothes up instead of piling the folded clean clothes on my bedside table ("oh, I'll wear that tomorrow anyway......") and other assorted things that I keep doing (or not doing) that convince me that if I just were to do it all perfectly then SOMEHOW LIFE WOULD BE SO MUCH MORE MANAGEABLE AND THERE WOULD BE NO STRESS!

I know that many of you are still in school of some sort, but as a graduated-from-college-type-person, the only real responsibilities I have are to myself, my household and my daughter.  And even though you'd think that I'd have more time on my hands than, say a full-time student who works, I actually find myself with a lot less time than I used to have.

So many times, I find myself wanting to retreat back into the safe confines of something simple (like Tetris or Pokemon Trozei), or delude myself into thinking that the dishes will be just fine soaking in the sink if I leave them until we make breakfast dishes.  But like many people, I get an itch in the back of my throat when something isn't just so.  I promise, I'm not OCD, but I was weathered and trained by the constant watchful perfectionist eye of my mother as a kid and she imparted many "things must be just so" lessons upon my young psyche as I was growing up.  So now, I can actually FEEL the dishes "staring" at me when I haven't done them.  Every time I have a frozen yogurt, my stomach starts twitching, as if to remind me that I ought to just stop eating for awhile until I lose the weight.  And when I'm playing video games, I feel that nasty catch-in-the-throat guilt that tells me I am a bad person to be playing a video game-after all, I should be doing something USEFUL!  Like making the baby's scrapbook!  Or possibly varnishing the floor.  Or doing Kegals! 

......

Well, scratch that last one, I suppose I CAN do Kegals while gaming, but it takes the role of multitasking to an entirely new level, one I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough to attempt just yet.

I admit that I often follow stage 1-3 of the above comic, but I often pull myself up and force myself to do thing all in one go.  I'm not very good at doing things in bite-sized chunks or "gradually".  I like doing everything at once and then having all my free time to myself.  I remember back in elementary school, I'd finish the whole "weekly packet" on Monday afternoon during last recess and then keep it in my desk until Friday when it was due.  That way, even though I did work at the beginning, I had more time to not have to get to stage 5 (seen above).

Even now, that's how I tend to do my work at my job.  I prioritize things like Tetris blocks and then fit them into my various time slots during the day. 

But of course, there's the things that I don't like doing. And if I can get away with them, I usually send them on to someone else, or if they're not all that important, usually I make peace with letting them be (such as the grout in the bathroom-beyond the normal scrubbing, it's just not worth it to get in there with a toothbrush).

To some extent, even blogging can be a form of procrastination (yes, as I've mentioned several times, those dishes won't wash themselves and I'm still feeling that searing red heat of guilt for not having already run over and started the scrubbing yet).

And don't even get me started on how distracting the Internet can be (as this comic demonstrates all too well):

When I was growing up in the late 80's early 90's, we didn't have the internet at my parent's house (or at least the sort of internet that we can use nowadays).  And at my friend's house, it literally took about a half hour just to go onto AOL.com (which, to be fair, totally sucked anyway).

But nowadays, the temptation is often all-too-great to distract yourself with the internet while doing pretty much everything else.  I have gotten to the point where I was talking on the phone, playing a handheld game, watching a show on my Netflix through XBOX and replying on a forum post while also sending a reply IM. Obviously only seconds later, I dropped my phone, the Netflix lagged, I got a game-over on my handheld, and I lost the train of thought I was trying to convey in the forum post.

To some extent, even procrastination has become something I want to procrastinate doing. 

And, it seems even more often, procrastination has become much more like ACTUAL WORK than ever before.

I mean, I can remember back in the day eating Red Vines and watching Star Trek on my grandmother's rabbit ears TV (often having to reposition the rabbit ears if the transmission got shaky).  Now THAT was procrastinating.

When I "procrastinate" on the computer by writing emails or watching videos or educating myself via reading articles (even for fun!), i often feel that my concentration and mind is not really able to "relax" which is kind of supposed to be the point of procrastination, right?  Choosing something fun and effortless over the drudgerous work you have been dreading. Well, at least that's my definition.

Anyway, so I'm just wondering what you think about all of this stuff.

Are games a procrastination tactic, or can you honestly say that games are a healthy part of your daily habits (after all, spatial reasoning is helped a lot by most games and it's not healthy to have life be all work and no play)?

Do you think that procrastination can, when used in moderation, actually lessen stress and pressure?  Or is it simply a question of deferring it and allowing it to build?

I'd ask for some help figuring these things out here, but I'm guessing that many of my dear readers may well have to procrastinate in responding due to the flood of E3 blogging.

But then again, I suppose that's appropriate, considering my topic tonight! >_>

Happy procrastinating, all!