Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Living on the edge of my deadlines

Yesterday morning, I was supposed to go get bloodwork done in preparation for my annual checkup (standard procedure).   But I messed up my pre-test 8-hour fast by drinking coffee--turns out even black coffee will mess up the results.  So I planned to do it this morning instead, at 8am before my 9:30 class.  But I was giving a midterm at 9:30 and at the last minute decided not to push it by getting blood drawn first since I hadn't yet printed out the 5-page test. 

Good thing!  The Xerox machine became hopelessly jammed after spitting out one copy.  And it is a new machine.  You'd think I'd have learned.  From now on, I vow to never leave the printing of a test to the last hour.  I really mean it this time. 

I am a procrastinator.  I'm trying to become a recovering procrastinator. 

I write up a test the day before (or night before) and keep twiddling with it until the last minute.

I wait forever to buy airline tickets--the more expensive they are, the longer I wait.  I am flying to both Canada and Europe in the next month--business, not pleasure.  And I bet my procrastination added $200-$300 on to the tickets.  In the past, my procrastination often would pay off with lower ticket prices--but I don't think that happens much any more.

I wait until the last minute to send in conference papers to the discussant.  In fact, sometimes I am late. Very, very lame. 

I wait until the deadline has passed sometimes to even begin to review a manuscript or book.

I tell my students they'll have their midterms back within two weeks--then I wait until the very last day to grade the remaining 90% of them.  I do get those back by my deadline, but I wish I could just dive in and finish them in a week or less.

This morning, I did get the midterms printed on time by using the laser printer.  Good thing it's a 40-person class, not my 90-person class.

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