I need less soul-destroying forms of procrastination

I had a reasonably productive day yesterday and apparently I had to make up for it today. Getting to lab meeting by 8.30am never helps, either. So, instead of dealing with all the samples I generated yesterday, I've been refreshing google reader and playing pointless facebook games.

For the past five months, I've been playing Mind Games. It's not a single game, instead you have a choice of three simple games, each of which pay out tokens which can be used to buy prizes. Once you've bought so many prizes and got hold of the ones that are awarded randomly, you can move up to the next level.

I've been annoyed at how pointless and arbitrary the levels are. And yet, I kept playing all this time. It's only now that I've reached the highest level and realised I'm now supposed to either continue with the same account to try to improve my win percentage, or start from the beginning again (which a fourth game available), that I've gotten disgusted enough with myself to remove the application. At least it's better than the very similar, but even more pointless version where you can drag a coin across fake scratch-its to get tokens, instead of even having to solve a sudoku puzzle.

Yesterday, after reading my post about skills I enjoy using, a friend suggested I could add Mind Games to the list. I was ashamed to have to admit that I didn't actually enjoy playing it very much. The pointless games I waste time on do say something about my motivations. I like positive feedback and making visible progress. Apparently it doesn't matter if the rewards and goals are mere pixels. I also like competing. I genuinely enjoy playing anagram games against worthy opponents, even though the solitaire versions bore me to tears.

Now that I've removed the Mind Games application, I have no illusions that I'll automatically get more work done. I would like to make my procrastination more worthwhile, or at least enjoyable, though. I know it's easier to waste time online while at work, because it looks enough like work to escape notice, unlike things I'd actually enjoy, like knitting or reading. Unfortunately, I do it at home as well. In fact, I just forced myself to stop so that I could finish this post.

I need to be more mindful of what I'm spending my time on. At work, that means doing my experiments so that I can go home earlier and do things I really enjoy, not just things I prefer marginally to lab work. But I also need to rebuild my ability to delay gratification. I would've aced the marshmallow test when I was a kid, but my self-control has been slowly eroding since starting grad school. Maybe I should start cleaning my teeth left-handed.