kaan's guide to complete failure.

Everyone has those little triumphs when things go better than they are supposed to; papers/projects completed in the last day, getting an acceptable grade on an exam with last minute efforts and all sorts of other beneficial results that deep down you know that you do not deserve. This is a step by step guide to avoid them.

Step 1 - Make yourself believe that the thing you are going to fail at (hereafter will be referred as the THING) is VERY important .

Failure is at its best when you think you have no way to work around the problem it will cause; also this belief should be set a considerable time before the realization of failure to make optimum effect so you will think you have enough time to prepare yourself and then fail.

Step 2 - Shape your schedule keeping the THING in mind

Make sure you include about prep'ing for the THING in your daily plans even if they are vague at best, if you are worthy of an epic fail, you are going to ignore them anyway.

Step 3 - Excuses

You are going to need excuses to skillfully avoid your own plans to prep for the THING, spontaneous plans with friends are among the best candidates (after you have spent the part of the day you have given yourself, of course). The trick about excuses is that should be strong enough to postpone the THING in your mind for a while but not strong enough to make you think that you are going to fail until you already have failed; meaning, you should be able to formulate new plans for the days/weeks to come involving the THING and feel good about it.

Step 4 - Adaptation

The illusion of adaptation to your conditions is an essential part of feeling good about doing nothing. Make your plans to include more and more about prep for the THING. Just keep in mind that allocating an unrealistic part of your time in your plans to the THING triggers some sort of an internal control mechanism. you have to adjust the
time period proportional to the time left for the THING. (ie. if 2hours/day sounds good when you have 5 days left, do not jump to 4-5 hours for the next day even if spending 12 hours will be reasonable for the last day. Remember, subconsciously you want to make it avoidable.)

Step 5 - Breaks, time offs, pit stops

Eventually the time you cannot escape from your plans about the THING will come. From there on, you are going to have to pick something to fill the breaks you give yourself. to ensure failure, this has to be an activity which requires little enough time by itself even though it is likely to be repeated in succession. Animated comedy shows are editor's choice since they take your mind off stuff, make you laugh AND you are going to find yourself skipping the intro of the next episode before you know it and we all know that it's too late by then.

Step 6- The day before

This is the day that makes or breaks you. The first half of the day is essential here, if you can't make use of your `break time` to make you believe by the middle of the day that you have failed, you miss a very important opportunity to make yourself a new mark to redeem yourself in your eyes (ie. I have failed at X but if i do it and/or Y till -insert date- it is not going to be so bad) to give you the rest of the day off or, god forbid, you might work your ass off for the remaining part of the day to make it in time (you probably can't but you don't want to risk failing at failing).

Step 7 - Redemption (optional, but adds a lot to the pain)

There are no special instructions for you to fail at your redemption mark and you should not need either, you already failed once; you know what to do. Repetition of the previous steps should be sufficient.