Way Back Wednesday: The Procrastinating Writer

 Today’s throwback is a mash-up of two posts from thirteen years ago, and testimony to the adage that old habits die hard. I've spent more time than I’d care to admit during the last month procrastinating instead of writing. Sometimes, it was justified – life intervened. Sometimes, however it was something else on the list below, a list which seems to have changed very little in the past thirteen years.

I planned to write this blog this morning, but I seem to have...procrastinated. Actually, I got caught up in the events of the day, including finishing up several other writing projects, which meant this one got put on the back burner.

After yesterday's post, I got to thinking about why I procrastinate when I'm supposed to be writing. Here's what I came up with:

1. I don't feel like writing.
2. There are 10,000 other things I need to do.
3. There's something else I want to do.
4. I don't know what to write next.
5. I'm afraid what I wrote yesterday isn't really that good, and if I sit down and look at it, I could prove myself right.

#5 is a really sneaky one. It sometimes masquerades as the four excuses that precede it, and to their credit, numbers 1-4 make really good covers.

Unfortunately, the only way to do away with #5 is to confront it head on and show it who's boss. Worst case scenario? What I wrote yesterday really isn't good, and I have to rewrite. It's not as though that's something I can't do. Best case scenario? It's good. Really good. And it reminds me why I bother to do this writing thing that can be so torturous it causes me to procrastinate.

The truth is, spending time on something besides what we're "supposed" to be doing relieves stress and frees our minds to wander, both of which often lead us to the very solutions we're struggling to find. We aren't robots. We can't focus on the task at hand 24/7, especially when that task is a creative one.

Starting slowly, by doing other things before I write, helps me to think. Sometimes, stepping away from the computer, even if just to toss in a load of laundry, unlocks my brain and releases the tension I feel when I sit at the computer not knowing what to write next. It also gives me space and a chance to move my body beyond swinging my leg and squirming in my seat. 

So, I refuse to relinquish my procrastination. Instead, I'm going to strive for balance. Too much procrastination? Not a good thing. But I can say with certainty that too much focus and not enough fun make me a very cranky writer.

Friday Feature: Me, Myself & I in the Future

I am a procrastinator. Not such a procrastinator that I don't get things done, or that I am constantly in stress mode because I'm working on everything at the very last possible minute, but definitely a dl-everything-else-imaginable-instead-of-what-I'm-supposed-to-be-doing procrastinator. John Perry called this structured procrastination, and I embraced this term with every I'll-get-to-it-in-a-minute bone in my body.

Turns out, I'm not alone and, according to an article by Becky Kane-Doist in Fast Company, it's all my brain's fault. Luckily, my brain and I inhabit the same body and I still have some semblance of control. Even if it's an uphill battle.

What it boils down to is how we think of our present selves vs. how we think of our future selves. Knowing this and understanding the ways in which we can make both selves happy, makes it easier to adjust our thinking and, consequently, our actions.

Suddenly, my love of the snooze alarm makes so much sense. And, while I'm pretty sure I'll continue that particular love-hate relationship, I definitely want to try some new strategies on my more wakeful self, if only to eliminate one of procrastination's favorite traveling companions.

Guilt.

Friday Feature: The Pros of Procrastination

Several years ago, I read a great little book on procrastination. I found it quite by accident in a local independent bookstore and I re-read (and re-investigate) its first chapter every year in my first year seminar. It's not a self-help book (though it is classified as such on Amazon), nor is it filled with recriminations. Instead, it describes what the author, philosopher John Perry, dubs "structured procrastination."

I can identify. In fact, I'm doing just that right now. I planned to read a few of the papers I have to grade (for those same first year seminar students) before I left for class this morning, but instead, I am writing this blog post. Both need to be done, but instead of doing the thing I planned to do (or was supposed to do, if you will), I'm doing something else. I'm not procrastinating by watching TV or taking a nap (although I do those things, too); I'm simply avoiding doing one thing by doing another. It feels virtuous, in a way, because I'm accomplishing something.

It's just not the thing I was supposed to be accomplishing at the time.

A recent study revealed a difference between the brains of procrastinators and the brains of doers. Put simply, we (procrastinators) have a different relationship with risk, fear and emotion than doers do, something that the researchers have attributed to differences in the volume and relationship between certain brain structures.

If that's true, structured procrastination makes a lot of sense. We put off doing less desirable tasks in order to do more desirable tasks because emotion plays a bigger role in our decisions. Case in point: I'd rather write this blog post than grade those papers so, here I am! Still, finishing this will be rewarding for me because then it will be posted and I can check it off my list. Not so for those papers; in the time I have before class, I'll only get through two or three. I can make a dent, but not complete the task.

Do you procrastinate? (Don't be embarrassed if your answer is yes -- I firmly believe that everyone procrastinates some time). While Perry's book won't provide a lot of advice on how to stop being a structured procrastinator, there are plenty of resources that will. This article by psychotherapist Jude Bijou offers eight steps for conquering procrastination and, considering the source, it's not surprising that she takes feelings into consideration.

Personally, I don't see procrastination as a bad thing, unless it interferes with meeting deadlines and accomplishing important tasks, or if causes so much stress that it interferes with someone's mental health. On numerous occasions, my procrastination has actually been beneficial, allowing ideas to simmer while I worked on something else, or giving me the opportunity to enjoy someone's company instead of keeping my nose to the grindstone. Sure, it's important to get things done, but balance is important, too, and sometimes, following the path of procrastination can leads us to some unexpectedly good places.

Friday Feature: Now or Later?

Are you a procrastinator?

Yeah. Me too.

But, as I teach my students when I introduce them to John Perry's essay on structured procrastination, procrastinating is not always a bad thing. Sure, too much of it leads to stress and ever-lengthening to-do lists, but too little of it can also reduce creativity and close us off to new ways of looking at things. The trick with procrastination, as with so many other things, is to use it in moderation.

Looking for some easy ways to break the habit? Check out "5 Ways to Beat Procrastination."

Let the productivity begin.

Saturday Special: Sooner is not Always Better

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Yes, I am profoundly aware of the irony of posting a link to an article on procrastination late. This one, however, was worth sharing regardless of the timing.

Unlike most articles, this piece from the New York Times about procrastinating on purpose is a great read for procrastinators and non-procrastinators alike. The author, a "get it done" kind of person, learned that achieving a balance between leaping into action and dragging his feet might indeed be a good place to be.

If you're wondering how that could be possible, you should definitely read the article. Now or later? Well, that part is up to you.

Friday Feature: FOCUS

Photo: clconroy via Morguefile

Are you one of those amazing people who sits down to begin a task and keeps at it until it's finished? Do you manage to get from start to finish without any interruptions or distractions?

Then this week's article isn't for you.

But if you, like the rest of us, find that your path from Point A to Point B is more often jagged than linear, you might want to check out Next Avenue's 8 Ways to Beat Work Distractions and Be More Productive. A compilation of ideas from a workshop by Sam Horn and Danielle Faust, the piece offers tips on conquering work woes from persistence to procrastination.

I have only one complaint: I wish the article wasn't so prominently peppered with links to other relevant articles. Good for the web site and bad for the distractible reader -- which is actually kind of ironic.

I had to read the Jerry Seinfeld link. How about you?

Saturday Special: Baby Steps to De-Cluttering

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De-cluttering is one of those things we have to be in the mood for. Like so many other things, getting started is the hardest part.

That's why this article from Bright Nest makes so much sense. The concept of starting with a small space isn't exactly rocket science, so to speak, but it's easy to overlook its benefits:

• Putting a halt to the procrastination process and starting somewhere, no matter how small, often energizes us to tackle bigger spaces;
• De-cluttering is de-cluttering. Reclaiming a space, no matter how small, is a step on the road to organization;
• Smaller spaces can be easier to keep neat in the long run, and a succession of neat spaces that stay that way contributes to overall organization.

Still overwhelmed? Trying the Give it Five! trick. Set a timer for five minutes, and when it goes off, you're finished. You can keep working if you wish, of course, but you can also walk away.

So where will you start? 

4 Signs That You're Overextended

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As I sat down to work on a last Friday's blog post at close to noon on Friday (about 12 hours after it's usually posted), I decided it was safe to say I was feeling a tad overextended. Summer vacation had barely begun, yet everywhere I looked, someone or something beckoned.

I should've seen it coming. The signs were all there:

• Decline in motivation, which I chalked up to laziness and/or the start-stop-start again nature of most days last week;
• A growing feeling of panic as I surveyed my office, which had been trending toward neatness, but was now falling off the organization wagon;
• The inability to select a task, focus on it and see it through to completion. I was great at both selecting and focusing on the wrong tasks (low priority, low yield), while the others piled up around me and eventually engulfed me; and
• Rampant procrastination in everything from getting out of bed in the morning to even making a list, let alone tackling it.

In retrospect, all of the above had one thing in common: avoidance. And my inability to sit, settle and start was exacerbated by trying to flex my schedule around everyone else's.

It was time to take charge. To just. Start. Somewhere.

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I threw a load of clothes in the washer and started with the little things that nagged at me and sapped my energy: the phone calls and appointments that needed to be taken care of. Since it was close to noon on a Friday, I met with limited success, but that was enough to get me started on one of the things I'd been avoiding all week.

Making a list. Two, actually.

The first was a favorite motivational tool: the backwards to-do list. The second was a list of things to
do on Monday when offices re-opened and I could take care of the appointments and phone calls that had yielded dead ends just hours before the weekend began (timing was never my strong suit).

From there, it got easier because, after all, getting started is always the hardest part. By just starting somewhere, I moved forward. Progress generated momentum, which led me to another baby step.

As an I need to see it person, one of my favorite little games to play with myself is "pick up one thing." When I'm overwhelmed, even the thought of clearing the piles amassing on the dining room table (and in other locations) makes me want to curl up and take a nap, but tackling it a little at a time by picking up one thing as I go by and putting it away -- well, that I can do. I rarely grab just one thing, but by giving myself permission to start small, the burden is lifted. Once again, all I needed was an entry point. From there, progress was in my sights. 

One of the tough things about being a writer is that my primary tools -- my mind and my creativity -- rent out space to other tenants. Even when I know I should be focusing on writing and editing, there are necessary mundane tasks that also require a chunk of that mental energy, whether I do them right away or not. Strangely enough, not doing them right away is often a bigger drain on my mental energy than simply gritting my teeth and getting started. The less mental energy I have, the less creative I feel, and the more likely I am to fall into traps like the bullet points above.

Photo: lisasolonynko via Morguefile

As long as we are members of society, we're never truly in control of our all our time. There will always be competing demands; chief among them is the clash between logic (do it now!) and emotion (I'd rather do this/someone else wants me to do that). And the sooner we come to terms with the inevitability of this clash, the less mental energy we'll waste fighting it. 

Easier said than done.

Procrastination Pays

I just finished reading a great little book -- one that was part of my last book splurge at Hearts and Minds. Entitled The Art of Procrastination, it's a fun little read by John Perry, an emeritus professor of philosophy at Stanford. Yes, I know the two halves of that last sentence don't sound as if they belong together (one of these things is not like the other?), but I'm not making this up. And, as evidence, I submit the subtitle of the book: "A Guide to Effective Dawdling, Lollygagging and Postponing."

Dr. Perry's first chapter began life as an essay -- one that won the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize in Literature. Before purchasing the book, I stood in Hearts and Minds and read a good chunk of that chapter, and that's what sold me on the book. After I brought it home, I set it aside, picking it up now and then to nibble at it a chapter at a time before finishing it all in one big bite this morning. No, I did not put off reading it; I merely savored it.

Dr. Perry doesn't extol the virtues of procrastination, except in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Throughout the book, he points out that lots of procrastinators accomplish quite a bit, much of it while they're doing something else, (a.k.a something besides what they're supposed to be doing). He intertwines his philosophy on the life of a procrastinator with strategies and, true to his education roots, a disclaimer that he's not recommending procrastination as a lifestyle, merely pointing out that we're not all lazy lollygaggers who put things off to the point that we never accomplish anything.

If you're a procrastinator (especially a "structured procrastinator," as Dr. Perry has dubbed himself), you'll laugh out loud at this book. If you know (or live with) a procrastinator, you'll either chuckle, or grow increasingly annoyed (see chapter nine) as you read this book. Or, perhaps you'll do both.

The timing of my reading is a bit ironic. I read two chapters last night before going to sleep, then finished this book this morning -- after spending much of the day yesterday putting off doing a project at the top of my list. I picked up the book last night in part because it related to the project I was working on, which is also part of what compelled me to finish the book this morning. By the time I finished it, I'd mentally written half of this blog and had begun coming up with new ideas for a class I'm proposing.

And my project? I finished it. Before I finished reading the book.

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Can Staring Tame Procrastination?

As I was gathering information for  a class I am teaching, I came across some interesting advice for beating procrastination - stare at the project for 15 minutes, and don't allow yourself to take action. I tried to imagine myself doing that - and a student and I actually chuckled about that approach when we were discussing time management last week- until today, when the value of the sense of urgency that action creates hit me.

Last weekend, my husband and I went away to celebrate our 19th wedding anniversary. It was just a simple trip to the beach, but we rarely get away alone, so I was determined to go off the grid, at least as far as work went. Still, I packed reading material and the novel I’m supposed to be revising just in case down time presented itself and coincided with motivation.

When the first half of that equation came to pass on Saturday morning, I pulled out the novel. To describe my procrastination as prolonged does not begin to do it justice. Some of my reasons were 
legitimate - classes and the necessary preparation for them came with a solid deadline, and the revisions did not - but the biggest issue was sheer avoidance, augmented by the fact that I had mislaid the last section I’d revised. 

A week or so ago, I unearthed the missing section from the rubble in my office, and one excuse evaporated. Since I’d done my best (and most recent) revising at the beach two months ago (with apologies to my agent, if she is reading this!), I decided to bring the next set of pages with me on this trip.

And on Saturday morning, I opened the file.

And promptly had a revelation about how the scene in front of me should go, at the precise time that I could do nothing about it.

I was okay with that. When I retired, I promised myself that I’d adhere to the priorities I’d long avowed, the most important of which was that my family came first. I could wait until Monday to write the scene. In fact, I suddenly had a sense of urgency about revising the scene - and the rest of the book - that I hadn’t had since last spring when I got a nibble from a publisher.

So, here it is, Monday morning. I have a library book (non-renewable) due tomorrow, this blog to write and a class tomorrow evening that I must prepare for, not to mention the usual Monday chores at home to do.

I spent a little time with the library book, and have determined that the last barrier standing between me and that scene is this blog. The blog I am going to finish and post so I can clear that final hurdle and write. This blog that is so much easier to write....

Time to get to work, especially now that I've made myself accountable to the blogosphere.

The Power of Procrastination

I am most distressed to admit that procrastination has become part of my writing process. I suspect that this started long ago, during the break in my writing that occurred when my daughter was born, and no word I could put on the page could compare to the wonder of being her mother. Prior to that, I'd developed the habit of getting up and getting immediately to work on days off, a.k.a. writing days. I was motivated. I was disciplined. I was on-task.

These days, I am much more easily distracted than I was then. Then again, these days, I also have 24-7 access to the Internet, email and multiple social networking tools that allow me to fool myself into thinking I'm writing when I'm really just avoiding a project that needs to be done.

Maybe I hate having my creativity put in a box - whether that box is format, time frame or topic. Or maybe I'd just rather play than work. If it's the latter (and I strongly suspect that it is), then why do I find myself organizing, cleaning or doing laundry instead of writing?

Leaving the house often works, (especially when the destination is Starbucks), so I'm taking my laptop outside, away from everything else that seems to be calling my name. Perhaps the combination of guilt over time wasted and a change of scenery will nudge me into productivity....

Stay tuned. In the meantime, tell me: what do you do when you find yourself procrastinating?

Procratination Station

Though I know I have a tendency to procrastinate, I've never thought of myself as a person who does this because I work better under pressure. I remember staying up all night to finish a paper only once in college because that once was enough. Never. Again. Not my best work by a long shot.

Still, as I wrote my last entry, I realized that seems to be what I do when it comes to household projects. I have an entire vacation to re-do my daughter's hang-out room (still looking for an appropriate tween word to replace "playroom"...help me if you can!), and when do I start? At the end of vacation, when I have only a few days left and not enough time to complete the project.

Sure, it could be argued that it was Christmas vacation and that what I was doing prior to those last few days was celebrating Christmas...but it certainly seems that I don't start these things until the pressure is mounting. Maybe that's when the urge to accomplish something finally trumps the urge to do nothing.

I've come to the conclusion that for me, pressure is more of an ignition, helping me to jump start a large project or an imposing task, propeling me forward until I have made enough progress that the completion of the task becomes accessible...or at least unavoidable. I don't procrastinate because that's when I do my best work. I procrastinate because the accumulated energy helps me to complete the work. I think.

So, this weekend, we will attempt to finish off the, er, tween room - the one we started at the end of vacation. By the end of this weekend, the odds and ends will have found homes, the floor will be free of bins and we will no longer place our lives (or at least our balance) at risk when we attempt to cross the room.

Unless, of course, I find a good reason to procrastinate.

A Few Good Things About Procrastination

My daughter is on a Full House kick. As I attempt to write this, she's watching the Stephanie-is- the-middle-child episode, which is also the episode where Joey and Jesse help DJ with her science project. In the process, they come up with a solution to a problem of their own.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I find life truths in sitcoms, but this particular episode rang true for me. Stepping away from what we're supposed to be doing sometimes does lead us to solutions we've been struggling to find. Is that procrastination? Sometimes. But at other times, it's a necessary break.


The truth is, spending time on something besides what we're "supposed" to be doing relieves stress and frees our minds to wander, both of which often lead us to the very solutions we've been struggling to find. We aren't robots. We can't focus on the task at hand 24/7, especially when that task is a creative one.

Starting slowly, by doing other things before I write helps me to think. Sometimes, stepping away from the computer, even if just to toss in a load of laundry, unlocks my brain and releases the tension I feel when I sit at the computer not knowing what to write next. It also gives me space and a chance to move my body beyond swinging my leg and squirming in my seat.

So, I refuse to relinquish my procrastination. Instead, I'm going to strive for balance. Too much procrastination? Not a good thing. But I can say with certainty that too much focus and not enough fun make me a very cranky writer.

Do Procrastination and Guilt Belong in a Writer's Toolbox?

I hate interruptions, especially when I'm writing, which is why these weeks that my daughter is at camp are a writing haven for me. Still, by the third or fourth day of sustained quiet, I find myself taking longer and longer to get started. I thought I'd come up with a solution yesterday - switching gears. Instead of focusing on novel revisions, I focused on sending out an article to a newsletter and making plans to resubmit others and create a few new ones. It worked! I was energized and excited, and in the evening, I even found the energy to finally dig to the bottom of my desk and get things organized, so I should be in a great position to just dig in this morning, right?

I wish. Now that I've dropped my daughter and her friend off, chatted with a neighbor, gotten gas for the car, thrown in a load of laundry, wrapped a gift for my dad and read part of a chapter for the class I'm taking this summer, guilt is setting in. Sure, I'm writing now, but I know I should be doing the final polish on the last chapter of my middle grade novel, not writing this blog. (If you're reading this, Diana, I promise I'll do that next...or as soon as I put the laundry in the dryer!)

Fortunately (?), guilt is a powerful motivator, so off I go. Tomorrow, I think I'll write about procrastination.