Why am I procrastinating?
I don’t know what it is, but I just can’t sit down and do it. I’ve set aside time to do it. I’ve said to myself, finish this and then do that. That didn’t work. I’ve put time limits on it, though thats more for writer’s block and I certainly not out of ideas. In fact, it’s the opposite, I know what needs to be done. So now I’m at the writing-about-procrastinating in the hopes the writing momentum will carry me through it (another trick to fighting writer’s block).
I don’t know if there is any real “trick” to getting around it. You just got to do it, right? But even the lure of money isn’t enough. I think, perhaps, I’m not in the right mind-space to do it. I’m not getting enough sleep or even just plain chill-out time. All my energy goes to work, Alice and home. This project should be enjoyable. I know once I start, I‘ll just keep at it. But it’s not even the first hurdle or opposition that’s stopping me.
Anyone have any suggestions about beating procrastinating?
Guest
March 28th, 2007 at 12:01 am
Good and bad procrastination as Paul Graham says.
As long as the procrastination is GOOD then you’re in gravy. Making the dinner when you should be working? GOOD. Spending time with the children? GOOD. Even an hour on the Wii can be GOOD if it relaxes you. So identify BAD procrastination behaviours and remove them. And do something GOOD.
I wrote two posts which describe my behaviours here on my other blog.
Guest
March 28th, 2007 at 12:03 am
The short version:
What are the three most important things in your life?
Are you doing something for them right now?
If not, why not?
Administrator
March 28th, 2007 at 10:21 am
I see where your coming from. I’m not sure I completely agree though but generally I can see the sense of your “DSN” principal. I know I’d get around to it at some point.
However, something I didn’t note in my post, was that there another “thing” wanting to fill that space I’ve set aside… a wordpress plugin (TDOMF). There is something addictive about coding: small changes/big results. What gets me is that reboot is important to me. I just can’t make the headspace, to do it. It’s my first peice of writing that is going to be published or rather someone that I don’t know thinks that this is a piece of work they would publish and pay for. Not that I’m going to switch careers tomorrow.
On the DSN principal… how does that apply to the normal creative process? I love writing, but as an adult who has worked in a professional job, I know that the “fun” part of any work is only about 10% or so. The rest is the slog. Same with writing. The fun 10% is when you get all those ideas down on paper and the first words drip from you pen. The hard work comes in the form of rewrites, structuring, reviewing, proofreading, junk words, etc., etc. It’s easy to procrastinate that 90%, particularly if it’s just a hobby, like for me. It’s a discipline that must be learned. I’ve read some books on the creative-writing process that talk about this exact problem. Writers who do only first drafts. Most are not genius so their first drafts suck. Their work needs multiple drafts before it’s even acceptable.
[I think I may need to add a "preview your comment" to my blog if I'm going to write big comments!]
April 9th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
[...] think I’ve managed to beat my procrastinating. I’ve started doing the necessary work for Reboot over the last week. However my pace is a [...]
Guest
April 9th, 2007 at 8:44 pm
The point being that there is good procrastination and bad procrastination. If you avoid the latter then it’s not a COMPLETE waste of time.
Administrator
April 10th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
The problem turned out to be more about easy distractions and “percieved difficulty” than good or bad procrastination. Sure, there can be good procrastination and then there can be “buying off the guilt” procrastination. In this case it was bad procrastination IMHO.
Writing, for me, is like the the flow which I wrote about in my latest post.
Guest
July 23rd, 2008 at 4:32 am
Good and bad procrastination. Totally agree
What i do during good procrastination:
run through my bills
pack my table/room
watch that stock market
key in my money claims
read something basically good for my mental health to keep sanity
But I have a tendency, its human nature, to have too much of the good procrastination. Sometimes, the important stuff becomes urgent stuff in the end. that’s not good. so you need to have a balance.
to keep that sanity, dont punish yourself if that happens. try to improve instead. that gives u more motivation to work.
for a start, get lazy for a day, then occasionally throughout the day afterward. you know you need that break to attend to stuff important to yourself. which is? to me, is myself/myspace, my career direction, my family, etc.