In theory, it's bad because there supposed to be long-term consequences
You're not exactly using your rationalist skills here. What do you mean by, "in theory"? Does that mean you think those consequences are imaginary? What are the actual consequences? What do you actually value?
Either there will be consequences or not. Either you care about them, or you don't. You cannot seriously claim to be a rationalist and still adhere to the proposition that your behavior is consistent with your values, AND that this is a bad thing! That is exactly like saying, "What I'm about to say is true: what I just said is false." Or more colloquially, "Life's a bitch and then you die." Or, "The food is terrible here, but you can eat all you want!"
The truth you aren't facing or admitting to here -- and not just in this thread, but in ALL your whining on LW -- is that either the things you're complaining about really are acceptable/valuable to you, or they are not. Your failure to decide which thing you value more, does not grant you any special status as a victim.
Instead, it marks you as someone who's not only trying to have their cake and eat it too, but who also goes onto online forums to (ostensibly) whine about the incompatibility of having and eating, while really just looking for attention and sympathy to prop up an otherwise-empty existence.
You are not a victim. You're just whining about your own failure to decide what's more important to you... and this whining behavior has been richly rewarded with attention and sympathy. So it appears from your behavior that what you actually value most, is to both fuck around and get sympathy for the fact.
Based on that, I predict that your next response will be to justify how your behavior is outside of your control, and that you deserve sympathy. This may take the form of claiming that I'm unfairly attacking you, or saying that I'm right, but you really don't have control over your hypocrisy, etc.
But your real alternatives are as follows:
Continue on your present tack, making it clear to all of LW that attention and sympathy are higher values for you than discovering the truth (in which case, I intend to silently downvote any future whining of yours I encounter, on the grounds of your lack of logical rigor),
Decide that you don't really care about the "theoretical" future consequences of your action, and stop fucking whining about how bad it is that you don't care,
Decide that you do care about those "theoretical" consequences, that your current behavior is therefore not consistent with your values, and seek to self-modify accordingly (rather than simply talking about how helpless you are, whenever a self-modification discussion arises on LW), or
Admit that your actions are inconsistent, and seek actual assistance with the process of arriving at a consistent understanding of your values in this area. (Note: this option should not be confused with, "admit your actions are inconsistent, and whine about how pitiable and sympathy-worthy this makes you"!)
Anyway, I'm not going to ask you which of these options you're choosing, because your subsequent actions will make it abundantly clear to everyone here which choice you've made.
I feel as though I should respond to this, but I have nothing productive to say.
Ok, let's face facts. The Internet has fried my brain. I'm a terrible hedonist and procrastinator. I have a very important test in May -- I am not exaggerating when I say that the outcome of the test matters to the future direction of my life. There are situations where failure is just a temporary setback, and there are situations where failure would be a real problem, and this is the latter. No fooling.
My Problems
1. I don't work enough. My primary distraction is the Internet, though occasionally novels happen too, and I'm capable of just staring into space and daydreaming.
2. I fall asleep during the day. I've tried getting more hours of sleep at night and it doesn't solve the problem. When I'm bored or confused, my body says "Naptime!" It can be quite embarrassing.
3. I often feel too tired/demotivated/bummed to do errands. A lot of stuff, some more important and some less important, slips through my fingers. The most important, to my quality of life, are buying necessities and cleaning my room -- I tend to put these off much too long for my own good.
4. I don't have enough measures of how well I'm doing as a student. I get confused by some abstract concepts, and sometimes I don't even notice that I'm confused.
5. I like being happy and entertained better than being stressed and bored and confused. This makes me want to work less. Not proud of this character trait but not sure how I can rewire my preferences.
Planned Solutions So Far
1. Work in a cubicle, with no computer, with a kitchen timer to keep me mindful of how many hours I spend working.
2. Plan out the material I have to learn and the time I have to learn it, and make a kibotzer.com account to see if I'm on track for my goal.
3. Track various measures of productivity (hours worked, concepts learned, problems solved, percent correct) with a Joe's Goals account. Have thresholds that I don't want to drop below.
4. Use Self Control to block all my entertainment internet sites during "working hours" (I'll leave early mornings and/or late nights free.)
5. Accumulate diverse library books relevant to coursework, and various sources of practice problems, and more notebooks and paper than I need; don't let lack of physical resources limit my progress.
6. Set aside a regular occasion for clean-up and errands.
Any other advice?
In particular, I don't know what to do about my sleepiness problem. I'm not a very regular caffeine drinker; I've started to drink Lipton tea, but I don't think I've reached the quantity sufficient to keep me awake yet, at 2-3 cups a day.
Any advice on the psychological front would also be helpful. How to stay motivated. I know what my motivation is (the consequences of failure in my situation are not pleasant) but how to keep focused on the importance of my goal, without spending all my time being miserable and frightened because I'm visualizing the worst-case scenario. I know I can fuel myself on guilt for a short time, but I don't like it much and I don't think it's practical long-term.
Yes, of course I'm aware that adults know how to work to achieve what they want. Somehow I've reached adulthood without really developing all the personal capacities that I should have. It's lousy of me, but this is where I am, and I'm ready to change and willing to take advice.