I’m going to tell you a secret. I procrastinated writing this all week. I kept putting it off and putting it off until it became this big guilty monster I was ignoring.
I hate that feeling, don’t you? It makes me feel small, and squirmy and all knotted up in my stomach. I start making excuses for myself to make me feel better but all along I know the real reason is me. I’m the one who’s putting it off and I’m the one who can fix it.
So why do we do it to ourselves? What sort of things make us procrastinate and how do we stop doing it?
- Doing everything else first
Answering emails instead of writing.
Doing the dishes instead of writing.
Tidying your desk first because you can’t possibly work in a cluttered space and – oh whoops! Look at that, you ran out of time but look how pretty and clear your desk is now.
Instead of writing.
I have done all of these things and more.
Yes, all those things need to be done but do they need to be done now? Right now? This very second? Or is it just another delay tactic?
Before embarking on any new task ask yourself “Does this need to be done now?”
Then ask yourself “Why not write instead?”
Almost always the task can wait. I have never regretted leaving the washing up to write a story instead.
2. Social media
It’s so easy, isn’t it to pick up your phone to read a text, see what time it is or take a quick picture? Then while you’re there, you check in on facebook, instagram, twitter and before you know it you’ve lost half an hour of your life. You come back to your senses to find you’ve been mindlessly scrolling through nothing of any consequence, your time is gone and you feel lazy and guilty.
If this is something you find yourself doing then start laying down some ground rules to help you stay on task.
Put your phone on silent so you can’t be distracted by notifications.
Only visit social media sites during designated breaks and for short periods of time. Put a timer on your phone if this is something you struggle with.
Put your phone somewhere you can’t see it. Out of sight out of mind.
Put a social media lock on your device so that you can’t access it during certain times of the day.
And if you do catch yourself doing the zombie scroll, don’t be too hard on yourself. These things are designed to be addictive so if you do slip once in a while, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, find a way to keep temptation out of your hands and your focus back on writing.
3. Fear of Failure
I asked a group of writers recently, why they thought they procrastinated. We talked round and round until someone suddenly said,
“I think I procrastinate because I’m secretly afraid that what I write won’t be good enough. If I never write it then it can never be bad.”
Is the subconscious fear of failure stopping you from writing?
In an airbrushed, perfection obsessed world it can be easy to forget that everything starts as a first draft, a first attempt, a first step.
Firsts are rarely fantastic but they’re better than never starting at all. No one ever needs to see your failed attempts, your deleted pages, your wrong words. None of those things are failures, they’re just first steps.
If you never write it badly then you can never rewrite it better. And that’s the bit that counts.
4. Not having enough time
Before lockdown so many people said the reason they didn’t write more was because they didn’t have enough time.
“If only I could stay at home all day and write,” they said “I’d have finished that book by now. That’s the reason. Not enough time.”
And then the world stopped and all anyone had was time. Lots and lots of time. And we soon realized that the reason the kitchen isn’t clean, or I haven’t learned french or I haven’t written my book isn’t because of time. It’s me. Hi, I’m the problem, it’s me.
It’s so easy to say we don’t have enough time, I get it, I do, as the mother of two children under four, believe me, I get it. The truth is though, we only do the things we’re willing to make time for. And the mistake we make is thinking you need a lot of time but you don’t need to be writing eight hours a day to be a writer. Half an hour a day will do. A sentence a day is fine. A hundred new words before midnight each day all adds up.
Squeeze it in, make the time, curate the space.
Writing is a lifelong habit and you’ve got all the time in the world to nurture it.
5. Eat the Frog
No, this isn’t a witch’s spell to magic up an anti procrastination potion (though that would be nice).
It’s a mantra and method employed by highly successful people to increase productivity.
Simply put it means start your day by doing the thing on your to do list that you least want to do. That way there’s no chance for you to put it off and procrastinate throughout the day.
“But I like writing!” you might protest at me as you shake your fist at the computer.
So why are you putting it off? Just because we really enjoy something doesn’t always mean it’s first on our to do list. Maybe we’re putting it off because it seems too big a job, or because we think we don’t deserve the time to do it, or because of a million other reasons.
The reason is not important, the important thing is are you going to do it, or are you going to procrastinate with something else?
Are you, in fact, going to eat the frog?
Try the Eat the Frog technique for a week and see what happens. Every day make sure the first thing on your to do list is writing. You decide how much or for how long but make it the first thing you do.
Moor Imagination 