Doing other things instead.
That's the true meaning of procrastination - finding other things to do, when you know you should be working on a particular project.

Last year I entered a writing contest, along a predetermined theme. The entries had to be based around the idea of a machine that would tell you, from a blood sample, exactly how you were going to die. I saw the post, thought "Ooh! I'll enter that," got a rough outline for three different stories assembled, and then did absolutely fuck all with them for three months.

The night of the deadline. I'm staring at a blank Writer document. Every now and then I tap out a couple of lines, cringe, and have a smoke.

Believe me, I wanted to enter. Hell, I wanted to win. But little things, so many little things, got in the way - jobs for actual paying clients, cups of tea, cigarettes, beer, Resident Evil 4 - I was a busy man! I had procrastinating to do!

And so it came to pass that two days before the deadline, I focussed my procrastination energy into a single, horrendously silly act of intellectual violence against the monster we call "motivation." If I must procrastinate, I thought, I shall procrastinate like a King. I shall procrastinate like the Gods. I shall create a Remarkable Procrastination Device, set it loose upon the world, and show them, show them all, what true procrastination is really all about!

And then I went back to letting my own machine tell me that I needed to Repeatedly Taste my Flappy Crotch, wasting another hour. Damn, it worked too well.

As I went to bed that night, having uploaded this infernal machine to the web, I had this nagging feeling in the back of my mind. Like I'd forgotten something.

Three hours later, two stories were ready. They were of such shockingly poor quality that they might have been written by an inbred orang-utan with a typewriter, a bag over his head, serious brain damage and no hands. But I'd written them. Achievement!

My latest big writing project is a novel about genetically-engineered forklifts. Obviously, I can't put this off by writing a silly little Flash widget to waste people's time, oh no. This is a novel we're talking about. This is big. This is important. It'd take some serious procrastination to do this justice!

...so I wrote an even bigger waste of time instead.

One day I'll take on a project so large, so ambitious, that I'll have to invent a robot that can procrastinate for me. It'll gaze at its mechanical navel all day, and perhaps discover the meaning of life. Or, it'll see how many pennies it can fit in there.

My record is ten.
(CavemanJoe lives on improbableisland.com, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 5:00, 6 replies)

Ingenious!
And ten is quite impressive.
(cheez is feeling ergophobic, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 10:28, closed)

I'm going to click this.
But first I have to *consults Remarkable Procrastination Device* Reluctantly Punch my Fragrant Arse.
( Moey, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 13:22, closed)

I have to
vigorously plunder my bouncy arse.

The arse ones are the best, I think.
(CavemanJoe lives on improbableisland.com, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 17:52, closed)

I have to
Repeatedly fondle my disgusting offspring. You scare me. *clicks*
(Petite chien is going to do science to it, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 15:34, closed)

Death Machine
I entered that competition too, and spent the ten hours before the deadline feverishly tapping out a story that turned out to be a bag of wank.

In my defence, it wasn't *quite* procrastination... I hadn't bothered to check when the deadline was beforehand, even though I'd known about the competition for three or so weeks.
(Ellinikos contains a source of phenylalanine, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 15:57, closed)

Hmm.
Shall we post them, then? It's not like we can submit them elsewhere, and they might be entertaining.

I'll show you mine if you show me yours.
(CavemanJoe lives on improbableisland.com, Thu 20 Nov 2008, 16:54, closed)