My continuous mantra is as follows: Now, at 3pm, having done nothing but exist pointlessly all day, is not the moment to start work. After several pre-essay weeks of this it’s begun to occur to me I need to get used to the idea that the complete lack of motivation to work is not emanating from some sort of non-worky vibe of that particular moment. It is in fact engrained in my eternal psyche – sitting comfortably next to that cunning brain blob labelled ‘I’ll start in 15 minutes.’ Most of the time I’m not even enjoying what I’m doing instead of my work. Tickld, Facebook, FML, Failbook, and many, many more are of little to no interest to me, they just have the upper hand of not being work. Even when I do get a good chuckle out of a picture of a slumping dog with the caption ‘Today has been Ruff’ (pretty damn funny) my desperately sad back-of-brain is yelling ‘PLEAASSEEEE do workGeorgia. PLEAAAAAASE. PLEAAAAAASE.’
It’s just that infectious concept in aid of a complete lack of productivity: I will do my essay at some point…and when I do it, my dear friends, it will be so intellectually and conceptually mind blowing that I will use words no one has ever heard of before, I will jump 6 marks up from my highest ever mark and get a 1st, and my friends will cheer and bake desserts in my honour while I watch Geordie Shore. Right now, however, I have only time for the latter.
You see, I must escape from the truth that once I START writing, what I write may be ASSESSED and then – the big whooper – what if I’m CRAP? What if I am CRAP, and what I write is CRAP, and people (worse – my superiors) will know about the crapness. Then there will be no desserts. You see the issue here.
Another layer on the lack of motivation cake – where I work. I am very lucky in that I have discovered my work haven. When I go to Margie Ziff café and spread out all my books, it is impossible for me not to work. It is so relaxing and yet so lacking in distraction that I work at twice the speed than I do anywhere else in the world. But I don’t get my bum out of my pyjamas, onto my bike and go there in reading week. Why, you ask? Well, because I know for a fact that if I get out of the damn house, go there with all my books, and sit down with a cup of tea, I will work. And I don’t want to work. So that doesn’t make any sense.
I have now reached the end of what I hope is some form of vaguely compelling article. Something you could actually classify as work I guess. That’s good, because in itself it is just another way of avoiding writing the two essays that I have due in on Monday.