Procrastination cleaning

Does anyone else do this?

Never were my room and bathroom cleaner in college than during finals week. When I had five term papers looming over me, I would have the sudden urge to scrub the toilet and attack the layer of dust that had formed atop my bed frame over the course of the semester. Anything, ANYTHING, sounded better than sitting in my desk chair for hours and hours doing the hard work of thinking, organizing my thoughts, and writing.

I found myself deep cleaning the refrigerator last Friday. The task needed to be done, and it had been on my list for weeks, but I only managed to muster up the motivation when I had a paper due (now that I am back in school). A tiny bit of pressure helps me buckle down and do the deep work, I have discovered. I will never be the person hitting “send” on a paper at 11:59 pm before the midnight deadline, but I cannot find the motivation to start weeks early either. I justified taking the time to clean the fridge because I was able to work through podcasts assigned for anoth…