Procrastination | 1807

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Procrastination

Hoo-wee, it’s episode 7 of Permanently Moved. Time comes around quickly—it’s that time of the week again when I have to sit down in the morning and decide what I want to write and record within an hour.

I didn’t really want to do it today. But here I am, pushing through my procrastination.

I’m a serial procrastinator. I find it extremely hard to do anything at all when I’m not in a structured work environment. I know everyone puts things off until the last minute sometimes, but I’m a chronic procrastinator. I fully avoid tasks and deliberately seek out distractions. Social media is the big one for me.

I think I’m going to try going cold turkey again—or at least shift to a broadcast-only mode, like I did last year. I really just need to get on with my life. It’s such a terrible, toxic hellhole, and I need to leave it for a bit. And by social media, I should probably clarify—I mean Twitter.

I’ve been on Twitter for over ten years now. It’s been on my phone for as long as I’ve had a smartphone. And it’s a real problem.

This probably comes as no surprise to anyone who knows me in real life, but at least I’m saying it out loud. And I know I’ve said it out loud quite a few times before. I know it’s a problem.

It’s just so rude. You sit there in the pub, looking at your phone while your friend goes to the loo. They come back, and you’re still looking at it. You don’t say anything. You just sit there with your beers, both looking at your phones.

Well, this is a downer of a podcast. Not my usual delivery. I can hear it in my headphones.

The “I hate social media” or “I’m leaving Twitter” genre is very much a thing now—just like “I’m leaving London” or “Why I’m leaving [X] city.” So maybe I’m just contributing to that by filling two and a half minutes with moaning.

But the real reason I want to leave social media is that I want to be busier. Actually busier, rather than just wasting time.

The definition of procrastination is a struggle with self-control. Procrastinators think it’s psychologically more acceptable to never tackle a task than to face the possibility of falling short in performance.

That fear of falling short is something I’m trying to confront with this podcast—producing it weekly, sticking to the schedule. And I think I might even have to go twice a week. Maybe if I just keep myself busier, I’ll have fewer excuses to sit around on social media. If that makes any sense.

Maybe filling my time with daily targets or goals is better than sitting around doing nothing. Because I’d like to stress—right now, that’s literally what I’ve been doing.

I’ve got a whole bunch of things I should have done this week, but I haven’t. I’ve just been sitting, scrolling, focusing on social media. And when I think about the most productive people I know—not in a “worship the capitalist productivity grindstone” way, but just in terms of actually getting things done—they spend very little time on social media.

They’re broadcast-only. They don’t concern themselves with what’s happening on there. And I think that’s probably a much better way to live.

One of my friends—who isn’t on social media much—said to me recently that Twitter is like the weather.

It’s there. You can take an interest in it if you want. There are storms, rainstorms, windy days—the social media weather is choppy out there. But he just doesn’t care.

He’s got too much to do. He’s got too much he wants to do.

And I’ve got so much that I want to do. I’ve got so much I need to get on with.

Given my current circumstances, this is my chance to do exactly what I want to do with my life. To build something.

So I really should be focusing on that—instead of whatever the latest Twitter drama is.

Sorry about this. I just needed to get it off my chest and out of my system. It’s been on my mind, and, well—if you’re going to write and record a podcast in an hour, you should probably talk about something that’s top of mind.

What I would like—and I’m requesting this from the people listening in the UK—is for someone to start a short-form podcast. A social media shipping forecast.

Not Twitter Moments. But something daily, a minute or two long.

Tell me what the drama was yesterday. I’ll listen to it every morning, and then I’ll just be up to speed.

Call it Shitstorm in a Tweet Cup.

There are about fifty of you listening to this regularly, and I’d be really interested in hearing your strategies for dealing with social media.

And with that—you and I have both just struggled through episode 1807 of Permanently Moved Online, a podcast in 301 seconds.