Procrastination Icarus

I’ve been in a toxic relationship for the past four years.

With time. Or rather- lack of time. Okay, fine, lack of ability to act on the perfectly sufficient amount of time I actually have, due to my chronic procrastination. 

My procrastination is ironically rooted in perfectionism: my inability to start a project unless I can do it well. I subsequently spend weeks disproving Newton’s first law, as the deadline draws closer and not a single word is churned out.

It’s not that I don’t spend any time on it - I spend hours writing and rewriting sentences, juicing my brain for a handful of coherent thoughts. It’s worse for creative assignments, which is unfortunate given the fact that I’m due to publish this column once every three weeks.

For most of the time I have to complete an assignment, I do very little as I am imprisoned by my perfectionism, finding increasingly creative ways to avoid the thing I am supposed to be doing, and reassure myself that I’ll have plenty of time tomorrow.

Suddenly, there's never been a better time to pick up swimming again, learn Chinese, or deep-clean my whole apartment!

Until I run out of time.

Then, a switch flips. Library all day, from opening to closing, until I’m such a familiar face that I don’t need to show my Student ID card at the entrance anymore. 

There’s a particular masochistic thrill that comes with racing neck-and-neck against the clock, which has inadvertently moulded me into an excellent performer at the last minute, with my personal witching hour being between 11:00-11:59 pm. On the final evening, this culminates in a nail-biting, gripping, cinematic slow-mo- will she make it? Wait, she forgot another citation! I don’t know if she’s going to make it. I don’t think she’s going to make it. Oh wait, oh WAIT, she’s converting the document into a PDF- 11.59, tick tick tick - SHE SUBMITTED! 

And then comes the most dangerous part: the relief. Except it’s not the responsible kind of relief, where you reflect and swear never to do it again; rather, it’s the kind of relief that inspires me to maintain my streak as procrastination Icarus.

You would think that, by now, I would have flown too close to the sun - except the sun’s not out at midnight. So instead, I keep getting rewarded for my irresponsible behaviour- some of my best grades came from last-minute submissions. My brain has therefore learned the worst possible lesson: procrastination works.

Recently, however, I've made the mature decision to change my ways, as I am now an evolved master’s student.

How's that going? Quite well, actually. This article was submitted at 11:58.

Marisca Westerhof is the winner of the 2026 Campus Columnist Competition. She has been selected among almost 50 candidates to write a column on DUB's English page every three weeks in 2026.