Twelve easy steps to professionally and properly procrastinate with regards to schoolwork

By Adam Malinauskas
DRHS sophomore

    Start At School: Be Unprepared. 1. First, make sure you don’t use a planner, school organizer or anything of the sort. Avoid sticky notes, calendars, or anything that might remind you of impending homework in any class. The more you remember to avoid remembering homework and the less you see or write down assignments, the less likely you are to remember it at home. Got it?
    2. Next, plan on finishing all homework in your study hall, but secretly harbor the intention of listening to music, looking up videos, or talking with friends the entire study hall period. That way, you can trick your conscience into slacking off when the teacher gives you time to do the work in class, and when you get home.

    3. In a similar way, plan out your week very carefully. Mark Twain was noted for saying: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do you can do the day after tomorrow.” If planned carefully enough, a true procrastinator’s week should have all assignments lined up on one day just before they are due. This day typically would have a study hall which would provide an opportunity to finish off the work, but see Step 2 above for conquering this obstacle.
    4. Now, before you leave school, be wary of what you put in your backpack. Ideally, it should hold nothing but your laptop. Having said that, if by impulsion you slip whatever homework you have to do in there, place it in a different pocket then your laptop. That way, when you go to procrastinate, you won’t find an assignment staring up at you. However, It’s far better to just leave the homework in your locker, that way you can always tell your mom you don’t have homework with you.
    The Home: Where All the Work Pays Off. 5. When you get home, immediately pick up whatever method you have chosen. Then, throw your backpack somewhere where the contents therein cannot be displayed for view. This leaves any homework inside left for study halls or the day after tomorrow’s tomorrow.
    6. While at home, find a trustworthy method of procrastination to suit your needs. Some of the most popular or useful are checking Facebook sporadically, randomly searching Youtube or TV for something to watch, or finding a particularly addictive video game. This will keep you safe from the long hours after school where you might fall prey into doing schoolwork. To make sure you have absolutely no drive to do work, enlist the assistance of any procrastinators or irresponsible associates.
    7. If by chance you do happen to have a creative train of thought chugging along in your mind, make sure you harness its powers in a completely non-school related way. In other words, use your creative energies outside of the classroom so that you will be drained dry when an actual writing assignment comes up. If you follow your private interests, it will aid you in making sure nothing gets done in school. Also, if the creative thought is too powerful not to fit into the guidelines of a certain project, take Calvin’s (from Calvin and Hobbs) advice. The greatest ideas come at the last second before class; or in the case of an essay, it’s proves the best time to B.S. the entire thing.
    8. Similar to what is mentioned above, if you have a reading assignment in any class by all means start reading! Read on the bus, in study hall, when you get home, read until midnight if the mood strikes you! Just be sure it is not the book that has been assigned by the teacher. That way, your head will be filled with a completely different novel while you go to take a quiz on the assigned one, promising a low grade. So for example, you could be thinking of “The Hobbit” while you are supposed to be writing an essay on “Frankenstein.”
    Successful Strategies. 9. A particularly popular strategy among the best of procrastinators is “The Sick Day.” When properly used, it can be very useful. The idea is to feign illness (whether physical or in the more desperate cases, mental) and persuade your mom to let you stay home from school. This is usually brought on by some huge workload due that day which would require an entire day complete. However, to be certain that the workload is not completed, use the procrastination methods chosen in Step 4 to limit the time spent on schoolwork. The Sick Day is a rather dangerous method in that you may be enticed to do something productive, which is why it should only be relied on if you have a dependable procrastination method. Also be wary of how many times you use The Sick Day, your mom may not be as gullible as she looks.
    10. When worst comes to worse, it’s time to start addictions. Desperate times call for desperate measures, as you are well aware. That’s right. Open up the cupboard and pull out all the Cheez-Its, crackers, pretzels, chips, and candy you can find. When you are fearful of falling into a homework assignment, snack the time away. Make sure you don’t eat any actual food – that could fill you up and you would lose time — but continue eating junk food, grazing until time runs out and you have to do your homework the next day.
    11. Another strategy that can prove vital if you have a particularly gullible parent is “The I’m Tired.” After you’ve spent the whole after-school time indulging in procrastinations, you’re mom might ask you that horrid question, “Do you have homework?” Now, if timed correctly, The I’m Tired can guilt your mom into letting you go to sleep instead of doing the homework which you can of course “finish before class.” Now, though going to bed early limits your procrastination time during the night, it is a small price to pay to get out of schoolwork.
    12. Never, under any circumstances, finish any school paper, project, assignment or or impending deadline. Make sure your thoughts trail off to some other topic and convince yourself you have ADHD if it helps. Double check that every problem is unfinished and no thought is finalized.