Procrastination nation

Dear Hipster:

I’m an independent contractor with a handful of small design clients. It’s not a huge amount of work, but it pays the bills. Sometimes, especially when I work at home, I procrastinate for the better part of a day before I begin any actual work. I always get the job done in time, but I can’t help but wonder how much free time I am wasting on entertaining but unproductive dalliances with various websites. What’s the best way to manage my procrastinatory tendencies?

— Brandon, Hillcrest

Take heart in the certitude that you have the most important criterion on lock. If you were flubbing deadlines because thousands of cat .gifs on Tumblr commanded your undivided attention, then you would have a real problem. What you have constitutes a mere annoyance.

In my hipster experience, there’s no point in struggling to eliminate a behavior which is more or less common to just about everyone. Instead, I use my powers of procrastination for good whenever possible. You’re sorely mistaken if you think this column gets written before I’ve prepared several labor intensive cups of coffee; caught up on whatever happened in the world of pop culture while I slept; prepared still more coffee; taken umbrage with half-a-dozen bloggers and online columnists; checked obscure, ironic fantasy sports you’ve never heard of; and spent 20 beautiful minutes daydreaming about a world where Disturbed faded quietly into the early-2000s obscurity they so deserved.

By the time I’m done with ritualistic time-wasting, my hipster senses are tuned to a fever pitch, ready to dislike mainstream stuff at a moment’s notice. As long as the procrastinations have some reasonable limits, you could almost argue they’re a good thing, part of whatever “process” you have to go through to get yourself in a productive frame of mind.

Also, and this is just an observation, it’s always better to procrastinate in a vaguely useful manner, e.g., reading a local food blog > engaging in Facebook flame war.

When all else fails, I suggest SelfControl for Mac, or Cold Turkey for PC. Both allow you to blacklist yourself from sources of online distraction for a set period of time.