Sometimes, I do not want to do anything although I have plenty of time. On those occasions, it seems as if my desire to do anything productive vanishes, leaving me with that idleness. Why does that happen and how may I use my free time constructively, especially when there is a lot that I can take the lead on?

I am usually focused and hard-working. I even believe that I work well, maybe better, under pressure. I know this because when I have free time on weekends, I tend to put off work that I could complete for no apparent reason. A little voice keeps telling me, look, you can do it later, you can do it later. Often, I would listen to that voice sitting on the couch or wandering up and down the living room aimlessly. Eventually, as is to be expected, I would end up with one or two days left and a ton of work to do. The pressure would be high, and sometimes, I would lose sleep over the overwhelming amount of work I have on my plate.

As a teacher of college freshman composition, I have a lot of reading to do. There are what I consider low-stakes work or assignments. Those don’t need much work on my part. I usually grade them for completion. But there are major assignments like full-fledged essays. Now, those need a lot more attention. In addition to planning and facilitating peer-review sessions for my students, I also have to provide constructive and actionable feedback to help students improve. That takes time and careful reading. Having procrastinated for a week or two ( I hate to use the p-word), here I am with work that seems impossible to complete within the little time that I have cloistered myself in. This situation keeps happening even though I vow to myself, each time it happens, that I will do my utmost to complete small amounts of work over an extended period rather than waiting until the last minute and having to face the mounting pressure and loss of sleep. But it keeps happening.

I hear some of you, readers, say that resting is important. Oh yes, I understand the importance of well-deserved rest after weeks or months of preparing lessons, teaching, providing feedback, and much more. I also understand the importance of balancing work and play, so to speak. But look, when my body shuts off, I am not sure how to get out of the lethargy. In my lucky moments, I pick up and read a great book. That, however, doesn’t happen very often even when I have a book that I check out of the library that may need to be returned soon. Am I lazy? Well, I don’t think so. As I said in my opening lines, I consider myself a hard worker. I am usually focused and work diligently to complete any task on my drawing board. So if I am not lazy, what am I? Does that even matter? Finding a solution and an approach to use my time constructively is what matters the most to me.