Welcome back, dear Blog Reader. First, I have to apologise. I seem to have recently fallen into the dreaded black hole of putting-off-stuff and hadn’t realised it'd been six weeks since my last post, which is ironic considering this post all about overcoming procrastination. If time were a species, then it would be at war with the Nation of Procrasi. One of my most significant faults is I am a master procrastinator, generally leaving things until the last minute if not ten minutes after the last minute. It's something I'm working on, but it severely affects my creativity and desire to write sometimes. However, please don’t mistake this for writer's block. I have plenty of things to write about; it's just getting the time to sit and press these plastic buttons, which seems to elude me. Oh well, let's have a look at some of the reasons and, hopefully, some solutions to the time old problem. In my opinion, there are various reasons why you might feel the need to procrastinate, and I will try to suggest solutions which have worked for me. Fear or Dislike of the Task or Outcome So, Mark Twain famously said “If it's your job to eat a frog, it's best to do it first thing in the morning. And If it's your job to eat two frogs, it's best to eat the biggest one first.” For those of us who don’t know what this means, imagine you are a visitor to a new world and you are presented with a table of food. It is covered with all of your favourite foods and a live frog. You have to eat everything on the table, including the frog. Most of us will put off eating the frog until the last, from fear of the taste, which will inevitably cast a shadow over all of the other great things on the table. The best thing to do is to eat the frog fist, thereby getting the worst task out of the way as soon as possible and, once done, you are free to enjoy the rest of the table without having to worry about the frog anymore. It’s a very simplistic description of the problem but I like it, and best of all, I use it. Stay with me here because I'm going to maths it out here. I'm going to use Stress Points here. Say the task you don’t like is worth 100 stress points and each hour you put it off adds another 5 stress points to it. Start the task right away = 100 SP Procrastinate for 24 hours and then do the task anyway = 220 SP (100 + 24*5) Which is better for your overall stress levels? Something More Interesting To DoThis one is a little difficult as there are only two ways to overcome this. Either absorb as much entertainment as you can until you find everything a mere shadow or retelling of something you have seen before, rendering all further interesting things completely uninteresting, or have a little willpower. Our household used to be a subscriber to Sky TV. Over the last year or so we have been watching less and less TV so decided to cancel the subscription and see how we go with only Freeview and Netflix. As it happens, the only difference between having a thousand channels to choose from and only a hundred is now it takes us much less time to realise there is nothing on TV and move over to Netflix. That being said, if you truly love writing, feel the need to express your opinion to the world or simply just enjoy typing, then you will, at some point, realise you would rather be doing nothing else. Some people understand this more quickly than others do, but I believe we all get there in the end. Lack of ResultsEverybody loves results. If you think about page views or book sales, then anyone with an ounce of sense will prefer the graph getting higher and higher every day. A lack of any result for your work is an incredibly de-motivating proposition. Even though I’m not new to this, I still get excited and motivated when my dashboard says someone has deemed my book worthy of the price and made a purchase, and equally as de-motivated and demoralised when there are gaps in the sales. Let’s face it, out of a 100% chance, the chances of me becoming a famous author like one of my favourites is about 1%, and that’s probably ridiculously generous. The chances of me making enough from writing to make this my full-time job is about 9% and the remaining 90% is the chance it stays as a pleasant little hobby. To keep motivated I look to the future. Even if I get nowhere, I’ve achieved something which few people manage. Writing one book is an achievement in itself, let alone the six or so I have planned or the ones which come to me during the time of writing those six. Not Being Good Enough Ok, so here is a hard truth, and I may have already said this in a previous post – Nobody was ever good at something until they first learn how to do it and then practice. I remember reading somewhere it takes an average of ten thousand hours of practice to become an expert at something. So, chances are, you are not as good as you think you are, but you will get better if you stick with it and don’t be demoralised. I’m rolling the enemy state of mind known as “Imposter Syndrome” into this section too. If we think about it honestly, I believe most writers will swing from thinking they are the best writer ever to thinking they are the worst writer ever. I’ve covered “best” in the last couple of paragraphs, but Imposter Syndrome is something all on its own. It is the feeling of not deserving something or being good enough at something you have achieved and is a confidence and creativity assassin. Stand up to Imposter Syndrome. If you have other people telling you how much you deserve something or how good you are, then listen to them. It’s very rare for someone to be able to assess their own work and achievements objectively, you can only really know from an average sample of the outside world. And Finally Thank you for waiting while I managed to crawl out of my communications black hole. More posts to come!
See you next time, loyal Blog Reader.
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Craig BoldyBorn in South Yorkshire, he lives there with his wife and Labrador. Working a normal 9-5 while filling his nights with writing. Categories
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November 2018
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