I count myself among the world’s foremost procrastinators.

But then, don’t we all? The claim to possess world-beating procrastinatorial prowess seems to be a fairly commonplace assertion.  And the merest glance through my Twitter or Facebook news feeds confirms the extent to which this procrastination epidemic afflicts the general population. Well, afflicts my friends anyway. I’m sure your friends are all super organised, focused, disciplined and single-minded. And that your parties are just a blast.

Let it be known that at this point, I stopped writing to check Facebook.

One of the common pieces of advice when faced with procrastination is to ‘just get it started’.  Don’t try and do all of it in one go. Just start. Do something. Anything. Starting is often the hardest hurdle and this makes it that little bit less daunting.

The subconscious part of my brain that loves to procrastinate has a way round this though. It lets me start and get some things done. And then I feel a sense of accomplishment.

“You’ve done well so far.” It smirks, knowingly.

“I have done well, yes.” I agree

“If you continue at this rate all day, you’ll get loads done.” It opines.

“That’s true!” I agree again, unwittingly.

“Why don’t you take a break?” It suggests.

“You know what? I think I will!” I exclaim enthusiastically.

And BANG! It’s 5 hours later. I know all the latest football news, I’ve watched the funniest new videos on the internet, I’ve seen enough blurry pictures of my friends’ recent trips to Starbucks to last an entire read through of their tax return and I’m one step closer to knowing the identity of the mother of Ted Mosby’s children.

But my work remains undone.

Which brings me to my difficult second blog. After procrastinating for months I finally wrote last week’s post. I got started. And it felt good. I congratulated myself. And that’s where it gets dangerous.

And yet, here you are reading this (Hi Mum). So how did I overcome it? Well, I knew that if I didn’t do it then David Blurton and Josh Naylor would tell me off. Simple as that. I looked my procrastination demon in the eye and realised I was more afraid of my annoying friends.

So there you have it. The secret to beating procrastination. Get some pain-in-the-bum friends to poke you with a stick.

That’s not nearly as uplifting a message as I’d hoped to share.