How long would the tasks we’re putting off actually take? TikToker Christi Newrutzen has gone viral for timing herself completing chores she has been avoiding. “I have been procrastinating on making a dentist’s appointment for three years,” Newrutzen said in one video, viewed 3.6m times (presumably by people like me, ducking their own drudgery) before filming herself doing it in a mere nine minutes. Clearing her shower drain for the first time ever took only seven (albeit impressively revolting) minutes.
Newrutzen is comfortingly unvarnished and relatable; people have started thanking her for inspiring them to tackle the long-neglected corners of their own lives. After a week of algorithmic nudging to watch her, I too felt compelled to try, despite a sense of foreboding. (Surely I have good reasons for letting things fester?)
I started a timer and tried to reply to a long-overdue email from my accountant. I assumed this would be simple, but soon realised it would require me to confront some of the things I loathe the most: password-protected portals, Excel and, worst of all, my bank statements. I hacked away for 38 miserable minutes, just long enough to pass the buck, temporarily, to my husband.
Next, getting a doctor’s appointment to have the weird-looking mole I found in December checked. One perfectly pleasant phone call later, it was booked: nine minutes, 47 seconds. I rewarded myself by tackling a plate of miscellaneous bathroom flotsam I had been looking at, thinking, “I should do something about that” every time I brushed my teeth for the past four years.
However, in a devastating turn of events, during the eight minutes and 50 seconds it took to clear the plate of shame (Thai coins from 2015, tags from long-dead trousers, a bewildering number of screws), my husband had retaliated, lobbing a horrible heap of documents back into my inbox. Some hours later, I also realised I had booked my doctor’s appointment for a day when I would be out of the country and remembered why I started procrastinating in the first place: because chores beget more chores. This stuff will never, ever end, so I might as well watch more TikTok.
• Emma Beddington is a Guardian columnist
