Ahhhh, procrastination. From the latin procrastinare, to put off till the morrow, to delay.

As I sit here at 2 am, delighting in the mise en abyme, I’m hard pressed to think of anything more central to college life than putting off work. Maybe beer. Maybe the vector of sleep deprivation. They are all, of course, interconnected.

But procrastination is a real biggie. It makes sense. College is a very strange place when you think about it. It’s a place where you live with your friends, everybody’s your age and you, incredibly, have access to free alcohol six nights a week. At college, where there is always something going on, doing homework almost always means actively turning down something fun.

It’s easy to see why so many students have a hard time making this decision on a regular basis.

But procrastination is a much more complicated matter than simply giving into temptation. There are direct and indirect forms of procrastination. Direct procrastination involves simply choosing not to do the work. It involves making a commitment to doing something else. This form of procrastination is always in your own hands.

More insidious however, is the indirect variety. Indirect procrastination is the procrastination that occurs during an attempt to do work. You "decide" to do work, but in the end get little or nothing done. In the right hands, indirect procrastination can be an art. Similar in ways to the psychology of addiction, indirect procrastination involves both conscious and subconscious forces acting on the part of the procrastinating student to trick that student into doing anything but what he or she is trying to do. During a bout of indirect procrastination you might actually believe that you are physically unable to do work before having cleaned your room, checked your email, or played a game (or two) of Snood.

And the whole time, because when you are indirectly procrastinating, you really believe that you are dedicated to the doing of work.

Contrast the following scenarios:

a. Suzie Student has a four-page paper due Friday at 5 pm. It is Thursday night. Suzie knows she ought to start writing, but she (understandably) would prefer to go to the Junior/Senior Social at Walton Commons. After much thought, and a few phone calls, Suzie decides to go out instead of writing her paper, trusting her last minute paper writing abilities to save her on Friday. She goes out, gets drunk, has fun. Work done: 0

b. It is Thursday night. Somewhere on the other side of campus, Suzie Sagehen is in the exact same position as Suzie Student, but diligently decides to stay in and write the paper. As this will involve several hours in front of a computer screen, she decides to stock up on some snacks. She heads out to the Coop. Difficulty deciding between the chocolate bar and the healthy alternative, a long line, and, on the way back, a chance run-in with a friend, work together to turn Suzie’s quick stop into a half-hour, or even 40-minute ordeal.

Back in the room, Suzie sits down at her desk to start writing, but remembers that she hasn’t yet responded to her friend Suzie Abroad’s latest email. Twenty minutes go by. Then, she has to go to the bathroom.

On the way back, Suzie notices how messy her room is and decides that she can’t possibly get any work done in such a pig-sty. (Another 40 minutes.)

Contented with her newly clean room, Suzie sits down in earnest to write her paper. Looking at the clock, she decides that it would be better to get ready for bed now so that she can work straight through the night. A shower, etc., ensues. (Half an hour.)

Finally ready, Suzie sits back down at her computer and starts her paper. A sentence or so in, she wonders if it wouldn’t be better to look back through the novel before blindly writing. Yes, she thinks, if I want this paper to be any good, I should make an outline.

Since she’s already in her pajamas, Suzie decides to sit on her bed to study… where she realizes how tired she is. Looking once again at the clock, Suzie realizes that it’s far too late for good thought, and that, tired as she is, anything she’d write tonight would have to be seriously rewritten in the morning.

At this point, Suzie decides that it is in her best interest to go to sleep. Work done: 0.

Obviously, scenario "a" is direct procrastination and scenario "b" in indirect procrastination. Both, as you probably know, are rampant at Pomona. So, I guess the moral of this story is: don’t procrastinate, but if you’re going to, make the commitment. You’ll be happier in the end.