The Wall …

After a couple of weeks of vacation, I’m back.  And something unheard of has happened:

For the first time in 5 years people can see my computer screen.  During my 3 years of PhD and for the first 6 months of this real job, my back was turned to a wall.

I was totally free to browse with only myself to blame and control.  How did I fare?   Well … not too well. Yes, I partly achieved my goals.  Yes, I learned lots on Wikipedia, TheOilDrum, Casaubon’s Book, The Financial Times, Avax Books, Youtube, Instructables, okcupid, plentyoffish, and a million other time-warping websites.  But I did not learn anything relevant for my work.

Today my colleagues can see my screen and I welcome this new era of peer pressure.  I’m thrilled to have more control and productivity seems to be on the rise!  How do I know?  The next post will explore how to diagnose SIP (Severe Internet Procrastinitis).  I’ll let you know which tools I use to measure time lost, useful time and improvement!

What procrastination is not

Procrastination may be many things …

But I don’t think it’s laziness. One can do a thousand things while procrastinating. One can even learn, create, read, interact and yes, agreed, loose sight of priorities. Even so, I can say that often procrastinators can achieve many things even if these were not in the original plan.

Procrastination … what it is.

WordNet defines it as:  “the act of procrastinating; putting off, delaying or deferring an action to a later time”.

Or you may prefer a witty video-definition (from Lev Yilmaz):

The etymology of “procrastinate” means very literally: “putting off until tomorrow“. (cras=tomorrow in latin).

In my case I became a devoted procrastineur around high school. …