By Appointment to the Royal Court of Balwyniti

An important announcement

Since I seem to find it increasingly harder to get around to welcoming everyone to this society, particularly if I leave it for a while and the numbers start to pile up, everyone who wants to join may take this as the welcome message and make their way straight to The Palace Flophouse and Grill.

Welcome to The Society

What's our motivation?

Here at The Procrastinators Society, we're all busy trying to find lots of things not to do (and if that line sounds familiar, buy or rent yourself a copy of the film 'A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' starring Bing Crosby and Cedric Hardwicke).

	I really ought to go, I've got so much to do. But anyway...

To join The Society, please use the forum below, preferably tomorrow Unless I have some unpleasant chores to put off (and h2g2 is always a good diversion when you need an excuse not to do something), it might be a while until I get around to replying, so please consider yourself accepted as a member. You will get an official welcome... sooner or later

I have many plans for the society, including various events and trips, the dates for which will all be announced in arrears, as will the annual general meeting. Our motto is...

	I'll do it momentarily1

The philosophy of procrastination

Many people mistake procrastination for apathy or laziness, and indeed, there is a very fine line between them. With apathy and laziness, very little ever gets done because you just can't be bothered. If that's your leaning, then you should check out The Lazy B******s (you'll probably feel right at home too in Archangel Big 'Evil' Dan's Church of Weekendism).

With procrastination however, everything gets done.... eventually. In fact, some things get done very quickly if there's another task which is more onerous and burdensome. If there is a particularly unpleasant task to be done, and a much easier one comes along, the easier one will most likely be dealt with immediately, giving the impression of efficiency, which to the uninitiated, doesn't seem to be at all congruous with procrastination. Conversely, if there is a really, really horrible job that needs to be done, and a really, really, really horrible job rears its head....well, it's amazing just how much fun cleaning the floor with a toothbrush can become when you have to write a 10,000 word essay! So whilst lazy people are simply avoiding exertion, procrastinators are avoiding dealing with the present.

Procrastination has also been described as "multi-tasking at an incredibly slow rate"²

There is a school of thought³ which says that you should put off doing something today because you might be able to do it better tomorrow. This is a fine idea because when you reach the point where you believe that you know how to perform the task perfectly, and that task is eventually completed, you can bask in the satisfaction that it was done to the best of your abilities.

Am I a procrastinator?

If you exhibit one or more of the following characteristics, you are eligible for membership.

• Your fridge contains several science projects because you bought food but didn't do anything with it.
• You often run out of petrol, even though you drove past several filling stations and thought you'd be able to make it home and fill up the tank tomorrow.
• The toilet only ever gets cleaned when revision time comes around.
• You really mean to eat healthily, but usually end up with a takeaway.
• You often pray for rain because the windscreen is getting so dirty and the wipers clean it really well!
• You can't remember what colour the carpet should be because it's so long since you hoovered that all the pet hair has turned it a kind of brownish-grey
• Your mug only holds half the volume of tea it originally did because of the tannin build-up on the inside
• You spend far too much time here at h2g2

Society Members

Keeping this thing up to date is quite an arduous, and therefore easliy put-offable task in itself, and is made even more so if you put it off for as long as I usually do, which makes it even more put-offable, and so on and so forth. So don't feel too bad if your name doesn't appear on the list for a long time - there are dozens more just like you.

However, if you have been welcomed in as a member and you don't see your name on the list, or your link is wrong, let me know by starting a new thread in the forum at the bottom of the page, and I'll be sure to do something about it in the fullness of time

Last updated: March 20th 2003

Unconfirmed members (those have have expressed an interest but who haven't got around to making a decision yet)

• Grã
• Number 6
• Stormbringer The Cynic
• garbled

Members who have yet to get around to applying or expressing an interest, but are sure that they will.... one day

• You know who you are, and you are many

The Clubhouse

The Palace Flophouse and Grill is where we like to go when avoiding what needs to be done. It's a rather ramshackle and dusty place, full of old furniture and comfortable armchairs, all provided by the Procrastinators themselves as a subscription fee when joining The Society. The interior looks nothing like this...

A word from Wowbagger

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¹ Acknowledgements to So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
² Acknowledgements to Frankiemouse.
³ Acknowledgements to Peaceful Earthling.