Productivity and me

Sigh.\nI have so much to do and so little drive. A feeling I’d bet many are feeling in the wake of a week off of school. For instance, I was supposed to turn this column in a couple of hours ago, but having spent most of the past week looking down on Paris from various monuments, I just keep asking myself, “What’s the point?”\nAnd it’s not just this column. It’s the two papers I have due, and the two books I was supposed to read, and the article due next Monday. But after picnicking (which, by the way, has just topped my list of favorite word spellings) in various parks with baguettes and cheese and bottles of wine, I can’t seem to focus.\nAny attempt at checking Oncourse ends in perusing Facebook pictures. And forget about reading “Gulliver’s Travels” – they’re way less interesting than mine.\nAfter smelling disaster on the horizon (“I don’t really have to turn that paper in, do I?”), I’ve decided it’s time to come up with a plan.\nThe problem is, I’ve got nothing. I’m so unmotivated that I can’t even make myself make a plan for becoming motivated. (I can’t even make myself reread that sentence to see if it makes sense.) It’s all just too much work.\nI’d say I’m whatever the opposite of motivated is.\nI think the term I’m looking for is “screwed.”\nI’ve tasted the freedom, I’ve seen the outside and yet somehow after a whirlwind of a week, I’m back at my desk staring at a blank Microsoft Word document (which, I’m afraid, is all I’m going to see when my life flashes before my eyes upon death).\nNow surely I’ll be able to overcome my possibly diagnosable inability to focus, but in the meantime, I’m in some serious trouble.\nI figure I have a couple of choices. First, I can put everything off until the last possible moment when my conscience will finally get the better of me and I will quickly complete the task at hand. Second, I could shut the door, try to eliminate all distractions (aka, turn off the Internet) and suck it up. Third, I could become “that guy” and just give up.\nI’ve not yet made any final decisions, but at the moment I’m leaning toward the third choice solely because it involves the most sleep.\nYet something has just occurred to me. I am stuck inside a paradox. By writing about my inability to be productive, I am actually writing a column and therefore completing one of my tasks for the week. \nMy guess is that if you are reading this column, you too are probably putting some more important work off. I feel like I should take this opportunity to steer you in the right direction, offer you some advice and chastise you for your lack of focus.\nHowever, I’ll do none of those things because, frankly, they would all take way too much focus.