Something to Help You Procrastinate

If you’re going to procrastinate anyway, you might as well do the exercise in this post. It’s a solid tool to get you back to writing.

I’ve been staring at the screen for a good 10 minutes. Before that, I brushed my cat, read a couple of old blog posts, did some laundry, faffed around on Facebook, touched base with a few clients to make sure they had their November writing plan in order, hung out with my son for a few hours, and checked the average weather in Paris mid-December. Our trip is 10 weeks away, but why not check it now and start shopping around for the best boots for winter city walking? I mean, I’m only supposed to be writing …

I’m a writing + creativity coach and I’m a writer and creative, which means I can procrastinate just as well as my clients and every other writer I know. Probably better than most, if we’re being honest.

Here’s the thing.

I know how to address procrastination in myself as well as in others. But sometimes I prefer to avoid facing the point of my procrastination. All procrastination has a point, and every time I procrastinate the act of facing the point of my procrastination while I’m actually procrastinating, it’s so bloody meta that I feel like my procrastination is going to spontaneously generate its own meme. But first, it’s going to do the dishes.

And here’s the secret.

There is only one way to deal with procrastination, and that is to pet it and pat it and make it the biggest thing in your life.

Make it so big, you’ll do anything – including writing – to avoid it.

Worship your procrastination. Bow down to it. Adore it. Speak all the reasons you think you’re procrastinating and delight in every single one of them. Be sure to list all the ways procrastination makes you feel good as well as how it makes you feel bad and remember to include all the benefits you get from putting off writing, editing, or revising your stories.

Seriously. Say it out loud. See how it sounds.

Dress it up, put a bow on it, parade it around the house, and make it the center of attention. Focus on your procrastination. Make it so sick of you and your clinging, needy, thirsty ways that it shakes you off its leg with a look of absolute repulsion.

Stop kidding yourself that you’re doing something funny or silly or eye-roll-worthy. Why are you procrastinating?

Do this exercise. Do it now, instead of writing, because it is its own awesome act of procrastination.

Ask yourself four questions. Set a timer and spend three minutes answering each one. Focus on what you are supposed to be writing right now or next, specifically, instead of doing this.

• What are the positive consequences of procrastinating?
• What are the negative consequences of procrastinating?
• What are the positive consequences of not procrastinating?
• What are the negative consequences of not procrastinating?

Today, I procrastinated writing the first two blog posts in this series. These are some of my notes.

Positive consequences of procrastinating:

Not having to rein my thoughts in and focus, not having to decide what to write about, and not having to face whether this topic is stupid and I’m wasting time on something dumb.

Negative consequences of procrastinating:

Continuing to feel bad for not having written them yet, letting myself down on the first day of this challenge, and being a really poor role model for my clients.

Positive consequences of not procrastinating:

Feeling good about having written something helpful, feeling good about achieving what I set out to do, and knowing that even if it doesn’t get into the book, I got the material out of my head and onto the page where I can evaluate it (forward progress).

Negative consequences of not procrastinating:

I might have to face how thin or threadbare some of my ideas are, this WIP will be a real WIP and I will have to keep thinking and writing on it, and I’ll have to expose myself to people who will find out I suck, my writing sucks, and I’m a huge stinking fraud.

That last one is a biggee. I’m going to have to do some work on that fear. Meanwhile, I committed to writing these posts. Now I’ve seen my fear in black and white, I can put it in a separate container in my mind and address it when I’m not writing.

This exercise is important because it makes you face what’s going on behind your procrastination. It’s not a cure for procrastination. Despite the fact that this exercise has worked for all of my clients so far, I refuse to say it’s a cure. It’s not.

It’s just a tool.

But where would we be without tools? I’ve used a butterknife to turn a screw, and I’ve used a screwdriver to turn a screw. Cordless screwdrivers are the best, IMHO, but the butterknife still works. They’re all tools. Even if I used my forefinger and thumb to turn a screw, which I had to do once, those digits are tools.

This exercise is a tool. It’s a good tool, like a screwdriver. Use the tool.

Your future self, the one who gets to sit back and survey the writing you’ve just done with that curious mix of achievement, relief, and privately smug satisfaction unique to writers, the joy of having written, that future self will thank you. Because once you realize what’s behind the procrastination, you can address it. But procrastination is a big, thick, fuzzy, comfy wall that’s too tall too climb over, to wide to walk around, and has roots way too deep to dig under. The only thing you can do is go through it.

Before you can go through the wall, you have to know what it’s made of. There’s no point in bringing a hammer if it’s made of marshmallows, or an eraser if it’s made of bricks.

Find out what your procrastination is made of. It’s usually something manageable.

Your future self will thank you for it.