How To Procrastinate… Effectively
Non-fiction by Bradley Miller

            Homework is poison.  Perfect pupils begin plugging-away at their essays and projects even before the front door thuds shut.   They zap their homework before it can pile up and rot like garbage.  Unfortunately, perfect students remain an endangered species in North America.   Grab your machete!  Hack a crude path through the jungles of human behavior and find that we postpone what we could complete now.   From our preschool toddling years to our late eighties, we procrastinate. 

Most high school and university students practice this skill on a weekly basis (if not daily!).   After an exhausting ordeal at school, some students crawl home and refuse to busy themselves with homework.  To neutralize the guilt that creeps into their off-task cranial cavities, many pupils (perhaps of all ages) have developed a method of mental relaxation essential to their daily success at school.   Monotonous busywork erodes a student's motivation and hope like limestone in a damp cavern.  Survival depends on rejuvenation, and rejuvenation hinges on a time when a student can unwind his/her spring-driven motor and relax.   Afternoon nirvana.  And since most of us fall into the category of non-perfect students, this daily vacation, which prepares each of us for another day of learning, must be achieved through everyone's favorite bad habit:   Procrastination.

            However, procrastination remains a process often practiced, yet rarely perfected.   In order for a student to squeeze all the pulp out of each day, he/she needs a procedure that guarantees an afternoon retreat filled with everything but homework.   And here it is. 

When you arrive home after a day at school, waltz into your room and dig out your chemistry book (or other complicated science text).   Now, deploy the book flat on your desk, lay your head on a particularly puzzling diagram or "snoozer" section of text, and engage in a power nap.  If you're lucky, an hour or two should pass before your mom notices the drool creeping out from underneath your bedroom door.

            If you're not much of a power napper, feel free to:

a)       Help a younger sibling with his/her homework (I recommend quizzing him/her on spelling words).

b)      Whip out your iPod (don't tell me you left it at the computer!) and explore new, uncharted regions of music (all those tunes you acquired, but never actually listened to).

c)       And if all else fails, stare aimlessly at the wall, as if transfixed (no, better yet, mesmerized) by a specific pattern or design.  If your walls are white textured, try to label and identify shapes as zoo animals (elephants and dolphins, etc.).

In the hours following dinner (perhaps seven or eight o'clock), your mom will expedite you back to your room to study.   Sit down for a few moments, maybe crack open the book or sharpen your pencil until it hurts to touch.  Then decide that you didn't eat enough for dinner; you're still hungry.   Tiptoe down the hall (put your stealth slippers on for this) and into the kitchen.  By eight o'clock, mom and dad should be watching TV.   Grab your snack.  It must be something soft, not too noisy, like a banana or yogurt (sorry, no crackers in this operation).  Sneak out into the family room where the TV is on and casually slide onto the couch.   You'll go unnoticed for a moment, then it'll be back to your room (but the stunt was a success because look how much time you wasted – 5 whole minutes!)

Over time, your parents will wear down as you continue to abandon your workspace for a snack.   By nine-thirty, they should be asleep, and you'll finally have clearance to nibble on your crackers in front of the TV.

Time now passes quickly.  When ten-thirty rolls around, you may begin to feel guilty, but brothers, sisters, take heart!  If it makes you feel better, assure yourself that you will leave the TV and begin your homework in five or ten minutes.   You may choose to verbalize this notion with a hypnotic jumble of syllables such as, "Only five more minutes… five more minutes… minutes…" 

Be aware that your parents are not sound sleepers, however.  If they happen to awaken during a commercial break (those brash Dodge truck commercials!), rest assured, for I have devised a back-up plan.   As soon as you hear them mumble, "Hmm?  Shouldn't you, uh, be doing your homework?" quickly respond with a thoughtful question about the human existence, such as, "What purpose does education serve in a child's moral upbringing?"   Instigating a deep conversation should shock and confuse their tired minds so much that they promptly fall back asleep.  Mission accomplished.

By midnight, you may consider going to bed (after all, you must be properly rested to procrastinate effectively the following evening).   Assure yourself that you will get up early (say, five a.m.) to complete your homework.  Then hop into bed and catch some Zzz's all the way until your alarm goes off at seven o'clock the next morning, because you forgot to set it for five.