Procrastination and Showering

Procrastination

I have a fi­nal in just over two hours. In fact, it’s the last fi­nal of my first se­mes­ter. The fi­nal fi­nal, so to speak.

And like the model stu­dent I am, I’m not study­ing right now. Instead, I’m writ­ing an en­try for a blog that prob­a­bly only I read.

But what­ever. Here’s a quick tip I’ve picked up.

Showering

Yes, that is in­deed some­thing one should do at col­lege. But there’s more. I’ve dis­cov­ered, the time spent un­der the shower head is a great time to do math home­work!

On mul­ti­ple oc­ca­sions, I’ve fig­ured out a prob­lem or a proof while be­ing pum­meled by par­ti­cles of wa­ter. I think it has some­thing to do with the white noise of wa­ter and not hav­ing any dis­trac­tions.

Here are a cou­ple of ways to set your­self up for suc­cess in seek­ing your shower-so­lu­tion:

1. You should def­i­nitely at­tempt the prob­lem be­fore show­er­ing. You should know the prob­lem in­side and out be­fore you try to throw suds at the so­lu­tion.
2. Don’t shower im­me­di­ately af­ter at­tempt­ing the prob­lem. I like to sleep on it, so try it the night be­fore, then shower in the morn­ing.
3. A good way to know if you will find suc­cess in the shower is if you feel like you’re in­cred­i­bly close to the an­swer, but you’re miss­ing one key in­sight, or your men­tal processes are clouded by the fact that you’ve been work­ing on it for so long.

One pit­fall of this tech­nique, of course, is the in­ex­plic­a­ble lack of ac­ces­si­ble show­ers in the exam set­ting. But you win some and you lose some, I guess.

Best of luck to you in your hot-shower home­work en­deav­ours. I need to go cram for a fi­nal now.