May 6, 2024
#blog
Countdown clocks are weird. They used to make me super anxious. They still do, sometimes.
When I was younger, I used to imagine that every time I had to do some task, there was a timer set for how long it should take to complete that task before Something Bad™ would happen. It must have come from this kids' Amazing Race-style game show I used to watch when I was super young. I think it was called Jungle Run? My memory is fuzzy. Even something as simple as going down a set of stairs - if I didn't do it fast enough, a trail of lava would follow me down. Yeah, my imagination was wild.
Edit: I Googled it. Yes, it was Jungle Run.
Edit edit: Why do I still say Google when I use DuckDuckGo? I hate capitalism.
Anyway, when there's a timer involved, I seem to be better at getting things done. Not getting things done better. Just better at getting things done. They will be done with whatever quality possible. They just have to be D O N E.
One of my high school teachers believed that the only reason I wasn't getting good grades on his exams despite me clearly understanding the material was because he didn't have a timer projected on the board. Timers are scary. They make you work faster. But, of course, working faster doesn't always mean working better. It's just about being D O N E.
So what happens when you go to university and everything is due at midnight? You stay up until midnight powering through, of course! But since you put it off, you'll only get that productivity boost at the eleventh hour, aka when it really is do or die.
Maybe for me though, it's the twenty-third hour. 24-hour time always clears.
I was told it's an ADHD thing. I am not diagnosed so I will not say. I'm sure every student at my place has shared experiences of somehow pulling hundreds of words of gibberish out from under their sleeve in record time, within this final hour. Once it's done, you don't feel proud of it. You don't even bother to proofread it. Just get it in so Canvas can show you the confetti animation without Big Red Text saying you're late.
Oh, your instructor disabled the confetti? That's a letdown.
And no, I am totally not writing this post because I have one final paper to write that is due in two days and still haven't started. That would be silly!
I never learn.