Making Up For Lost Time

5 weeks, a long time, right? Well, er, no. For some reason during the holiday – sorry, ‘vacation’ – time vanishes. It’s incredible. It gets to bedtime – which is around the 3am mark now, of course – and you realise you have achieved absolutely nothing all day. Where does the time go?

Surfing the online wave

It absolutely goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway. The internet is a major culprit in the time-thievery stakes. Maybe you’re doing something vaguely worthwhile (maybe) – checking cinema times, for instance (bye bye, Thursday afternoon) but chances are you’re essentially wasting away hours on random websites. Favourites include random searches on Wikipedia, wish-list making on Topshop/Net-a-Porter/HMV and religiously following the trials and tribulations of the X Factor darlings, post their requisite 15 minutes.  Then of course there’s the specially designed time-wasting websites, e.g. textsfromlastnight.com, fml.com or listverse.com. These are created with sucking you in and stealing several hours of your life in mind. Once you’ve started there’s no going back either. You find yourself logging in day after day, just to see what’s new. Forget smoking and TV, this is the scourge of youth today. Maybe you’re even an internet gamer. Though my only experience with this is Neopets(I was twelve, ok?), I have seen many male friends get sucked in by the bright coloured cartoons and chirpy music. It’s a slippery slope, that’s all I’m going to say. And then there was Facebook. Being away from Cam makes all Facebook stalkers step up to that next level of creepiness as even normal folk spend time checking up on friends’ profiles due to the empty feeling inside that comes from being parted from those who every Tuesday held our hair back whilst we vomit in Cindies toilets.

“LOL/WTF/ROFL/TBH/I’M SO BORED”

This separation anxiety leads to yet another time devouring activity: texting. Yes it’s fun, but does texting continual updates of your life to close friends and random acquaintances give you any more than momentary satisfaction? Maybe this was what Buddha was on about all the time when he denounced material possessions. Maybe.

How Clean Is Your House?

Probably more of a girl thing but when I’m off I tend to find myself playing dress up more than is healthy. There’s nothing like having an entirely free day to make you want to try out purple eye shadow and discover that, as you thought, it is NOT a good look for you. Unfortunately this often leads to the less fun time-wasting activity of Tidying Up. I’m putting this down as time-wasting because although after a painful few hours all is nice and neat, you know it’ll be a mess again by that time tomorrow. Sometimes, you even find yourself driven to do something dangerously helpful like wash the dishes/empty the dishwasher/hoover. I know. MADNESS.

Gluttony

Having a kitchen in such close proximity is also an issue. You might think it only takes a minute to make a cup of tea but all those times spent being oh-so-very English and overdosing on Tetley’s adds up. Factor in the time spent heading downstairs to finish off some more of the Christmas chocolate and it’s not just your waistline that suffers. Wave goodbye to that work timetable you made yourself.

Oh, and for the record, endless timetabling, filing and making to-do lists? All time-wasters trying to pass themselves off as legitimate activity. Making ‘Ultimate Best Songs In The World’ playlists on Spotify also come under this heading. Fun, but uttery useless. All in all, it’s easy to see how even the best of us fail utterly at any degree of productivity over the vac. You’ve just wasted another few minutes reading this. And I wasted them writing it.  And now I feel it’s about time for another cup of tea.

Don’t you just love the holidays?