You sit down at your desk, open up your laptop, put on your favorite study jams and pull up your homework assignment. You’ve got this; your head is in the game. No one can stop you from writing an essay better than Hemingway! You proceed to read the first paragraph of the directions and the next thing you know you find yourself sitting upside-down in your chair, looking at Twitter for the hundredth time. However, it isn’t until you accidentally drop your phone and it hits you in the face that you realize the whole reason you are sitting upside down in a circle of folders is because you have a paper to write that’s due the next day.

As a frequent procrastinator I know the struggle, I often find my mind wandering to random topics that have nothing to do with my homework. As a matter of fact this very thing happened to me today as I began brainstorming ideas about what I wanted to blog about. Suddenly I realized a brilliant connection between one of my favorite movies, Elf, and procrastination. After much thought on the topic while putting off my other assignments, I have concluded that the journey to finishing an assignment is very similar to that of Buddy The Elf’s Journey to New York City from the North Pole. So without further procrastinating I present the Seven Levels of Procrastination

For those of you unfamiliar with the movie Elf, I suggest you drop everything and watch it immediately even though it’s not the Christmas season it will change your life! However for those of you that can’t watch Christmas movies outside of the holiday season, here is the gist: The main character, Buddy, is a Christmas elf from the North Pole who travels to New York City to find his dad. In order to get to NYC Buddy first has to pass a series of obstacles.  

The first obstacle Buddy has overcome is to travel through The Seven Levels of The Candy Cane Forest.

Similar to any journey, the hardest part is getting started. You find yourself staring at a completely blank assignment and you have to figure out how to navigate it. It’s a challenge mostly because you find yourself wandering through questions that all seem to be asking the same thing, and before you know it you get distracted from your task at hand for at least 15 minutes. Maybe you open your desk drawer and grab a snack or maybe you scroll through Vine, have you remembered to check if you have any new followers on Pinterest lately? By the time you wake from your daze to look back at your assignment, you have to backtrack and find a way to return to your original thought process before you can trek forward to the next question.   

The next obstacle for Buddy is to navigate The Sea of Swirly Twirly Gumdrops.

At this point in the journey you are starting to feel a bit frazzled. It has taken a lot of concentration to get to this point and now you are in the thick of it, there’s no going back. The challenge however, is to stay awake. After staring at a computer screen for so long your eyes become tired and everything starts to blur. Suddenly every object on you desk looks it would make a great pillow, but somehow you manage to pull yourself out of the haze long enough to push through to the final obstacle.  

In the movie the final hurdle for Buddy is Walking Through The Lincoln Tunnel.

By this point in the assignment the sun outside has already set and the only light in the room is coming from your small desk lamp and the screen of your computer. You have absolutely no sense of how long you have dedicated to this journey, but you sense the end is near. All you have left is the conclusion and you are home free! You begin to feel your focus sharpening, you are more able to block out the desire to check your phone and that light at the end of the tunnel feeling is fueling your energy level. Before you know it you are done! You slap your name at the top of the paper and hit submit. You are finally free to leave your room, and when you open that door for the first time, like Buddy the Elf, its as if a whole new world has opened up in front of you.