Ahh, my favourite word and the one thing that I am so good at and that is so truly concerning. 

50% of people in life say that procrastination is bad and that you shouldn’t do it and just get it over with instead of doing it the night before. The other 50% say that procrastination is good and that some of the best work can come from it and also the fact that no matter what it’s going to get done just in a smaller period of time. 

Now I am someone who just likes to get stuff done and just have it ready instead of stressing about it and then having this full day of stress till the work is done so I wanna be the person who doesn’t procrastinate however I am not. I will and pretty much forever will be the person who will leave things until the last moment and it has worked for me a lot but in the end, I just want to strangle my old self and yell at her “WHY COULDNT YOU DO THIS BEFORE HAND”. 

Anywayssss

So I live in Canada and every year the Toronto Star paper has a writing contest. The contest starts on January 7th and ends on March 1st by 5 pm. I was very late about learning about this contest that has been going on for years and just learned about it about three years ago. The rules state that it has to be 2,500 words no more than that and it has to be double-spaced and sent in the mail if it comes later than 5 pm on March 1st it won’t make the contest. The hardest part of the contest was having to mail it in and ensure it arrived on time. So at the start of the month because every year I forgot about the story until February I would start writing, brainstorm the story a little then write it. 

So by the 20th latest 23rd, it would be finished and the story would be sent to be judged. However…. This year they changed things around. This year I had two options for how to send the story in. First, one being mail the second one being able to submit it online. WHICH WAS GREAT. So I had more time to write and didn’t have to worry about it not making it on time. 

HOWEVER now like I said I had more time which sounds good to others but for someone who Procrastinates that means absolutely nothing and it just means I get to delay the actual writing of my story and by delaying I mean delaying until the 20th of February. So I would start writing it slowly getting there. 

I think the worst part about February is forgetting how SHORT the month is. I remember watching Tik Tok and someone mentions it being the shortest month and I remember the utter panic I had when I realized the story was nowhere near done. So two or three days before the deadline I was writing and that was my only dedication. 

By the end, the story was by far the worst thing I have ever written. The way it was written and the way the storyline was going just seemed to be something my middle school self wrote. So me being the procrastinator and absolutely hating the story less than 24 hours before the story is due I decided F it I am going to rewrite the damn thing and it’s going to be a completely different story. Less than 24 hours I was starting over from the start.

I wrote an hour one night and then spent the next day. The next day being the due date writing a whole new story one that somehow manages to be so much better than the last one. I sent the story within two hours before the deadline and didn’t overthink it thought it was great. 

That’s the funny thing about procrastination was that the entire time I was filled with stress filled with anxiety and fear that this entire thing was going wrong and somehow, in the end, I still manage to come out with an amazing story. 

Procrastination is such a dreadful but somehow still a wonderful thing…