Juiced On Writing

The sound of the word ‘procrastination’ just makes me want to procrastinate. It’s five syllables for a start. If sitting there, with the sudden realisation that I am, indeed, in the middle of a mugmire* of procrastination, it takes me a further several moments to sound the name out in my own head.

Pro-crast-i-na-tion.

Say it slowly. It’s almost one of those onomatopoeia types. You almost yawn in the middle of it.

* Even the term procrastination calls for some kind of slow sloppy groupage. Not a ’spurt’ of procrastination – that would never do. Nor a ‘blast’ or ‘gathering’. No, Procrastination itself calls for something squelchy and mud-like, don’t you think?

Pro-crast-[yawn]-in-a-tion [shake head].

In my household we don’t use the word. That was originally because we have a six year old, and can’t use such a long word to get our point across. She’d eventually get the point, but has a six year old’s habit of repeating things from home back at her teacher – who wouldn’t get the point, other than the fact that we were attempting to raise a precocious child.

In my household we use the term, “Mucking Around”. It is used quite often lately, when my daughter becomes distracted and forgets I’ve asked her to do something. Meanwhile I’m waiting impatiently wondering what’s taking her so long. It’s one of those high frequency terms of our shared life together lately.

“Mucking Around” has consequences. If she mucks around getting dressed in the morning (I found her last week having taken fifteen minutes to stand there in her PJ’s with one sock on) then there is less time to eat her breakfast or play before school. If she mucks around eating her dinner (which can somehow take a full hour, if we let it) then she misses out on getting to bed early enough to have playtime in the bath, or read herself to sleep. If she mucks around getting changed into her dance costume, there’s a good chance next time that we’ll run too late and I won’t take her at all. Harrumph.

“Mucking Around” runs on the principle of ’cause and effect’. If you don’t do what you’re supposed to be doing at the time you’ve got to be doing it, then something else has to give. But you never get away with not doing it in the first place. And if the effects are too dire, then you’re in ‘big big trouble’.

Something similar happens in the normal workplace, I know. If you’re not doing the job you’re scheduled to do, sometimes the repercussions can be heard throughout the office. Or if you do it enough times, then you find yourself searching for further employment opportunities elsewhere.

I figure that in my own writing I shouldn’t be “Mucking Around” quite so much. Never mind the pro-crast-i-na-tion, that one just puts me to sleep. No, “Mucking Around” means consequences, and I can’t afford them.

Credits: Source of fabulous Procrastination Flowchart

No related posts.