Disclaimer: this is a sarcastic guide. Don’t take it too seriously.
Are you sick and tired of being productive? Do you want to miss a deadline for once? Well, now you can! Just follow this guide and you’ll be procrastinating like a pro in no time at all.
1. Check Facebook first thing in the morning.
Forget doing your “morning routine” and all that nonsense. That’s for people who actually want to be productive. You’re not not one of those losers, are you? Uh huh, I didn’t think so. For true winners like you, Facebook is perfect for waking up as you’ll then spend the rest of the day wondering whether your ex has moved on with that bitch Karen or not.
Dramalicious!
2. Check all your emails.
Yes, ALL of them. Work email, personal email, email you use to sign up for shopping websites, email you use so you don’t get spammed, heck, even the email you forgot you made when you were just a pimple-faced teen. Who knows, maybe your Tamagotchi is still alive?
3. Go on Twitter, then Instagram, then all the other social media you use.
Argue with all trolls over whether [insert politician here] is good for the country on Twitter, then bounce over to Insta to see if your Man Crush Monday responded to your DM yet (ha!), then… I don’t know, head over to Snapchat to see if he’s there showing off his bits? Check TikTok while you’re at it, you don’t want to miss 15 glorious seconds of flexing. Mmm, glutes…
4. Wait, you say you’re too old for social media? Watch the TV then.
With top of the line programming such as Love Island, Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Bachelor and all those other Oscar-worthy shows on these days, you’re bound to find something to keep you entertained. It’s not like you have a book to write or anything…
5. Do all the housework you forgot to do the week before.
I know you didn’t think the carpet needed scrubbing last Tuesday, but you were wrong. It’s completely filthy. You need to scrub it now. And while you’re at it, the kitchen looks like it might be hiding some undesirables too, best to clean it just in case. Oh, and the bathroom mirror could use an extra wiping down as well—you don’t want your guests to see the water speckles, do you?
What’s that? You do? You filthy animal, you!
6. Now that the inside’s all nice and clean, it’s time to tidy up the outside as well.
Oh, you thought you could finally buckle down once the house is clean? Negatory, friend. Now it’s time to spruce up your garden, or clean the verandah or porch or whatever you have outside your humble abode that needs taking care of.
Trim the weeds, water the plants, grow some carrots or something. You know what they say—carrots are good for the eyes, and we writers need good eyes, what with all the reading we do. Which reminds me…
7. Read. Read a lot. Read everything.
You can’t write good if you don’t read, right? So take this wonderful piece of advice and read everything you can get your hands on, including but not limited to:
- coupons
- aerosol cans
- shampoo bottles
- marketing leaflets
- your Man Crush Monday’s inspirational quote of the day
- his rant of the day when no one shows him enough love
- that penis enlargement pill email you always seem to be getting even though you don’t have a penis (last time you checked)
- an unspecified vampire romance novel
- an unspecified but perhaps slightly related novel about a naive college girl meeting a randy entrepreneur
- that huge expensive ass textbook your lecturer insists you needed for their classes but never touched
- the complete works of a very prolific writer
- this shitty website
Why stop there—the sky’s the limit!
8. Watch everything YouTube has to offer.
Okay, now that you’ve caught up on your reading, you can now put your research to good use. But wait! Why write when there’s more to learn? Did you know:
- doges are adorable
- cats are grumpy
- aliens exist but the government doesn’t want you to know
- there’s like 50 different ways you can cook an egg,
- and maybe 1000+ tutorials you can watch to get the perfect smokey eye,
- and apparently fluoride in the water turns the frogs gay!
Wow, I feel S-M-R-T-er already!
9. Amazon has your back.
Like yeah, you can publish on Amazon, but have you ever thought about buying your groceries there? Or snapping up that dress you’ve been eying that’s now on discount? Man, if you really wanted to, you could buy 10,000 candles and no one would be none the wiser.
Be right back, there’s a limited edition eyeshadow palette that I’ve been meaning to get my hands on… for the past nine years now… I think the seller’s desperate for cash or something.
10. The weather sucks right now.
You know what that means—no writing today! If you’re anything like me, you have to wait for the perfect conditions before you’re ready to even think about writing. I mean, how else are the inspiration gods supposed to appear?
The temperature has to be warm, but not too balmy, a light drizzle is okay but heavy thunderstorms are not, and what’s this noise I hear? Are the hooligans hooning (for those who are not Strayan, that means driving recklessly) again? Yeah nah, I can’t work with all that noise. It’s a no from me.
11. Won’t somebody please think of the children?!
Alright, so I don’t have kids, but if I did, I’d be up in their business everyday. Little Timmy wants to play ball? I’m there! I mean, I’m crap at it, but I love my (hypothetical) child, so I’ll do what I must. Even if he doesn’t want me there. Especially when he doesn’t want me there. It’s not like I even have a life at this point, not to mention a book I should be writing…
12. Now’s a good time to make that complicated 100 layer cake you saw on Pinterest.
Who doesn’t love Pinterest? It’s so inspiring, whether you’re looking for wedding dresses or what’s hip in fashion or drooling over luxurious houses or gluten free recipes, Pinterest has everything you could possibly need to not be productive. Screw writing, I need to make cake, stat!
(Also, if you’re reading this, my cake failed. Oh well, back to writing…)
13. Learn a foreign language.
Why write beautifully in one language when you can do so in two? Or three? Or a dozen?!?!
Sarcasm aside, learning another language is actually one of the few things I recommend doing, just as long as you’re genuine about it and you know, not using it to procrastinate from the writing you should be doing…
14. Worry.
Like, about everything. Especially shit you can’t control. And aliens—the government’s definitely hiding something…
15. Write a list of shit that no one cares about, Buzzfeed style.
So here’s my top 15 ways to be totally unproductive.
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