Lazy Daze Breaking Out Of That Time-Wasting Mode Takes A Lot More Willpower Than This College Student Could Muster

It started in high school. I’d come home from a hefty six-hour day and reward myself with Lucky Charms in front of the magical box Mom and Dad wish they had never bought.

But Fred and Wilma led to “The Jetsons” and then Scooby and The Road Runner and “Press Your Luck” and “The $25,000 Pyramid” and “DINNER!” Dinner? Already?

I felt like Wyle Coyote hearing that annoying “Meep meep!” Not only had I wasted three hours of an afternoon, but an empty box of cereal meant I’d have to tell Mom why I didn’t like her chicken casserole. I could’ve gotten my homework out of the way or even gone mountain biking, but I spent the whole afternoon gazing into a little black box.

And now, in college, it’s even easier to waste valuable time.

My English professor asked us to try to change some habit and write about it. So I chose this one - chronic time wasting - and began with a conference in which my professor and I listed the time I spent each week on every possible activity. On paper, it looked as though I could eat, sleep, go to class, exercise, talk on e-mail, do everything I always did, and still have 10 hours a day for homework.

“How would I do this?” I asked. First I’d have to make a daily schedule of activities and lay out the appropriate time needed for each. In addition, I’d keep a journal of all the times I wasted time.

So I came home from the meeting with my professor and did what every other person like me would do. I plunked it in the back of my brain and forgot about it for a week, like I would a paper comparing Oedipus Rex to Hamlet.

But finally I dug up the notes from the meeting and constructed a beautiful schedule by which to live the rest of the term. I had everything accounted for - showers, errands, study breaks, socializing, racquetball. My new life would run smoothly and productively, like a colony of ants.

And it did. That first week, I’d come home from a 45-minute lunch, run errands for half an hour, play racquetball and shower by 3:30 p.m., and hit the books until a 6:15 dinner, taking a 15-minute study break, of course, to ease my ever-so-studious mind.

It felt great, too. I had more time for sleep, was doing better than ever in the classroom and my journal entries of wasted time were quite short.

But I was afraid my friends would find me “anal-retentive,” that I was lowering my “cool” status significantly. So one Saturday afternoon (right after a recreation period), I hid my schedule in the depths of my desk so only I would be able to find it.

But I hid it too well. Not even I could find it when Monday rolled around. In fact, I never did discover it until the end of the term. It was too late, though, because ever since the first day without it, I had gone back to my old habit of wasting time.

A record high score on Asteroids (one of the greatest computer games around) replaced valuable sleep. Calculus problem sets were yielded to the Mariners/Yankees series.

For one week in the term, life was perfect - the way it should have been. But now, computer games and Major League Baseball topped my priorities like a half stick of butter on fat-free waffles.

Why didn’t I bother to hunt down the schedule from the bottom of my desk? Because I was cool without it. I was hanging out with my pals, talking baseball and topping their highest Asteroids scores. I was having a great time at school.

At the same time, though, my journals became longer and longer as I wasted more and more time.

One Sunday afternoon, I went skeet shooting with my roommate when I should’ve done a physics lab. I came home, played some Pac-man, and received a zero for the lab. That zero is seen in my final grade, too.

Habit: 1, Randall: 0. I failed to cure my problem of wasting time. And my schedule still lies on the bottom of my desk drawer, constantly reminding me of how productive I can, but still, refuse to be. To me, it was much more important to hang out and be cool with the guys than to “tool” my time away.

Because of this, I was much less productive and my grades slipped, too. I’m certainly not advising someone to stop hanging out with friends, or even stop playing computer games or watching TV, just be aware of the possibilities when your time is managed in an appropriate manner.

As for me, I’m starting to be more disciplined. I’ve learned that I sometime just have to tell my friends I’ve got more important things to do than play video games. I’m finding a happy medium, between having fun with friends and doing what I need to do to succeed in school.

Try it and see what happens.

MEMO: Editor’s note: Randall Rutherford is a 1995 graduate of Mead High School. In addition to having a record-high Astroids score, he’s a freshman at Dartmouth College.