14. Which Would You Choose: Less or More?

If you had a choice, would you choose to work less or more? I feel pretty comfortable in saying that most of the human race would rather work less for the same results. Why then, do we so often give ourselves more work than necessary, and often with less results? It's every oxy-moronic.

I'm talking about procrastination. You're probably all smiling and nodding your heads at this point; you know what I mean. I should have realized this a long time ago, but obviously I didn't because Wednesday night right before the research paper rough draft was due found me up late on the computer, surrounded by books and articles, starting to stress out of my skin. As I went to the school the next on about four hours of sleep, I started realizing how much more work procrastination was. It seems counter-intuitive, since we usually spend less time on something we've procrastinated than we would had we done it in a timely manner. However, I am convinced that the stress and loss of sleep amount to having spent four times as much time on the assignment than we would have otherwise. And stressing too much can lead to death, which is never a good thing.

The worst part is that the assignment we procrastinated and spent four times as much energy on than we should have is probably not as good as it would have been had we done it early. Isn't that an interesting oxymoron that continues to crop up in our lives: we strive to do the same amount of work with less effort, yet we constantly make choices that lead to us doing more work for less results. What's worse is that we know about this problem; we're told all through the scriptures "don't procrastinate the day of your repentance." I feel like many people don't catch the full meaning because they focus on the repentance part, but if you take that part off, it becomes "don't procrastinate." We've been told for centuries not to do it, and logically, we shouldn't want to do it, but the moon still finds us up late into the morning, writing papers, and stressing over an undone project. It makes me feel stupid.

However, with this feeling of stupidity comes a re-found resolve to end my procrastinatory tendencies. After I've felt how much work procrastinating takes (research paper, studying for tests...this blog), I have decided that procrastination is one of the Devil's tricks, and I am not going to fall for it anymore. I no longer want to give the Devil a reason to laugh and sneer.

So the moral of the story? Don't procrastinate.