If people only wrote when they felt like writing, no-one would ever write. There would be no books, films, plays, comedy, radio shows, comic books – nothing.
There is always something you can do other than writing. I know, because I have done all of them. Procrasti-cleaning, procrasti-baking, procrasti-working – you name it, I’ve done it. I am the procrastination master.
The key to writing is prioritising and committing. That’s all. It’s staying on task and not distracting yourself with something you convince yourself is urgent and important.
An artist is simply someone who starts stuff and finishes it. Then starts something else.
You’ll either make time to write, or you’ll make an excuse. People tell me they want to write – but they don’t write. Yet they also want to go to the pub, play video games or sit around binge-watching Mad Men – and they do do those things. You don’t need more time; you need to prioritise writing over other things.
You also need to be honest with yourself. Are you one of those many people who puts obstacles in their own way? Do you find distractions to keep you from what you really want to do? Do you self-sabotage? You’re not alone. Why do we clutter our lives with these manufactured roadblocks and fake responsibilities when we could be achieving, succeeding and going to bed feeling a deep sense of satisfaction? For one, because it allows us to blame our unhappiness on something or someone else. Millions of people love to blame the world for their unhappiness. They love being in the ‘fix-me-make-me-happy’ state. It lets them off the hook about getting their shit together and encourages people-pleasers, healers and fixers to run around trying to cheer them up.
If you never have a proper stab at writing, you will never fail. You will never discover you’re not as good a writer as people assume you’ll be. By putting obstacles in your way, you leave that perfect, unfulfilled space denoted by the words ‘genius with potential’ untouched. That reputation (usually created by a parent’s narcissism or your own) is a comfortable place. But not a truthful or a helpful one. Push yourself out of your cosy comfort zone. You’ve spent enough time there.
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Blogger David Cain has some useful insights into procrastination. Check out what he has to say.
It turns out procrastination is not typically a function of laziness, apathy or a lack of work ethic, as it is often assumed to be. It’s a neurotic self-defence behavior that develops to protect a person’s sense of self-worth.
Procrastinators tend to be people who have, for whatever reason, developed to perceive an unusually strong association between their performance and their value as a person. This makes failure or criticism disproportionately painful, which leads naturally to hesitancy when it comes to the prospect of doing anything that reflects their ability – which is pretty much everything.
But in real life, you can’t avoid doing things. We have to earn a living, do our taxes, and have difficult conversations sometimes. Human life requires confronting uncertainty and risk, so pressure mounts. Procrastination gives a person a temporary hit of relief from this pressure of ‘having to do’ things, which is a self-rewarding behaviour. So it continues and becomes the normal way to respond to these pressures.
Particularly prone to serious procrastination problems are children who grew up with unusually high expectations placed on them. Their older siblings may have been high achievers, leaving big shoes to fill, or their parents may have had neurotic and inhuman expectations of their own, or else they exhibited exceptional talents early on, and thereafter ‘average’ performances were met with concern and suspicion from parents and teachers.
The obstacles we put in front of our writing are always very honourable. Actually, it would be more honest for me to say we make the obstacles we put in front of our writing sound honourable. We convince ourselves these obstacles and distractions are very worthy. Cleaning, parenting, paying bills, walking the dog, exercising, doing chores, feeling emotionally tortured, having writer’s block, saving the world via arguments on Facebook – all very honourable. But they may also all simply be tactics to avoid the hard, boring, thankless task of writing.
Boring and thankless. Yep. That sums it up.
In order to write, you need to be realistic about writing. It sucks, but you do it because of how you will feel when you’ve finished. The crises of confidence are a test. Over. Under. Through. Remember Sesame Street? If you can’t get over it, go under it. Can’t get under it? Go through it. We all hear the voices, feel the trepidation and see the imaginary signs that say, ‘Wrong way, go back!’ They are not a sign to stop. They are a sign to keep going. They are not barriers; they are merely obstacles to be aware of and navigate.
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Dom was my first child. Everything I’ve learnt about procrastination, I learnt from him. Well, not directly from him, but from becoming a parent. Having more restrictions on my time made me understand how much time I actually had and what it was possible to do in that time. Before I had children, I had no idea how much I procrastinated. Not just hours, people. We’re talking days and weeks. I was the ProcrastiMaster 2000. This is what a typical workday looked like.
With kids, by 9 a.m. I would have written for about two-and-a-half hours and often as many as 1500 words, depending on whether I was writing an opinion column, comedy sketches, jokes for monologues or a novel.
I still procrastinated, sure – just not as much. When I had Dom, suddenly I had a baby. And I was a freelancer. As was his dad. We worked fast and used the time we had well because we had to – we had no idea what the day would bring. We never knew when one of us would get sick, get more work or simply want to take a lovely walk in the park with the pram or catch up with mates who felt like having lunch. We didn’t use childcare. We were the childcare. If I had a scrap of time, I thought, ‘Okay, 15 minutes. What could I get done? 300 words? Send two invoices, pay two bills? Do three passes and a spell check on that 800-word opinion article?’
Once I was a parent, time when the kids were sleeping or being looked after by someone else was prime time. I did things when they were not about that I could not do when they were there. That’s not to say I didn’t get writing done with kids around. I did. Heaps. While they were playing, sleeping or entertaining themselves. But at any moment my attention might be suddenly ripped away by the needs of small people.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not as disciplined now. But I do know what works for me and what I am capable of.
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Let me repeat: there is always something you can do instead of writing. Let’s say I come to your house and say to you, ‘Hey, you’re always saying you can’t write because you have all these things you need to do first. Well, I’m here to do those things for you – so you can write. What were you planning to do for the next hour?’
You say, ‘Take the clothes off the line, unpack the dishwasher, file receipts for tax, pick up the dry-cleaning, make bolognaise and walk the dog.’
I’m like, ‘Done. Sorted. Go work.’
I guarantee you’ll reply, ‘Oh, hang on, I just have to check my email, clean the guttering, change all the light globes …’
One of my Gunnas said she often thought about my vase cabinet.
‘Vase cabinet?’ I asked.
‘Yeah. When I did Gunnas, you talked about procrastination and about having to dust the vase cabinet.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yeah, you said you often thought, “I’ll do some writing but first I have to dust the vase cabinet,” but then you realised you didn’t have one. So you would have to buy one. And then you realised you didn’t have any vases to put in it. So then you said you’d have to get on the internet and buy some vases. Then you said you didn’t know anything about vases, so you said, “Well, I’ll be flat out researching vases all day, so there’s any chance of writing gone.” ’
Turns out I did mention my vase cabinet. I wrote the following piece in 2008, as a foreword to an anthology of student writing. And yes, I did write it at 3 a.m. the day it was due …
They say procrastination is crack for writers. But they say a lot of things. I don’t even know what it means, but I think it’s true.
When I started out as a writer, I was working with a fabulous bloke and great Australian satirist, the late John Herouvim. We were working on something that had to be finished by Friday. ‘I’ll come over Wednesday morning,’ I said. ‘No,’ he replied, ‘I won’t be scared enough. Make it Thursday night.’
There is nothing more heart-pumping, sphincter-tightening and adrenaline-producing than a deadline. Comfort is the enemy of art, and fear is a great motivator, particularly if you have to pay your rego. But fear is also a great inhibitor if you have nothing to lose. Despite having creative satisfaction and that thrilling post-coital feeling of getting something done to gain.
Last year I was sitting on a beach in Far North Queensland eating a packet of Chicken In A Biskit and rereading the same paragraph for the eighth time as I watched my three little boys play Kill Me In The Face. Which was a welcome change from their usual games – Kick Chasey, Snot Wars and Hide and Spit.
An almost friend from years ago recognised me. She told me her mum had been enjoying my weekly cries for help in the newspaper. ‘Mum really wants to be a writer. She’s been talking about writing her memoirs for years. She has amazing stories. She’s seventy-seven. Have you got any advice for her?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Tell her to do the writing before she folds the washing. Do the writing before the ironing. Do the writing before getting dressed, having a shower or eating breakfast. Do the writing first. Because there is always something you can be doing instead of writing.’
More than being paid for writing or even seeing your work published, getting the writing done and winning the battle with procrastination is the biggest triumph. The sad thing is that it’s usually at three in the morning two weeks after the deadline. Basking in the post-coital feeling of Getting Something Finished, you find yourself thinking, ‘I love doing this. Why do I leave it til the last minute? I waste all that time feeling guilty and beating myself up about pulling my finger out to do something I love.’ It’s not about praise, prizes, being published or paid. It’s about proving. Proving to yourself you can do it. And you did. There is no better feeling.
We want to write. We do. It’s just scary and hard work. And usually disappointing. Our writing is rarely as good as we want it to be. My writing life spans eighteen years, and in that time there have only been a handful of things I’ve written that I’m happy with. The rest make me cringe. But it’s the possibility that we may blow our own minds that propels us. We’re junkies hanging out for a hit.
There are people who write and there are writers. Writers have to write. It’s like having a shit. If you’re a writer who isn’t writing it wells up inside and makes you sick. Robert Hughes summed it up for me: ‘I feel guilty when I’m not writing and when I’m writing I feel guilty I’m not writing well enough.’ I’m worse. I’m promiscuous. A writing slut. When I’m writing, I fantasise about writing something else. My mate Lou is a writer. She says, ‘Do stuff for love, do stuff for money, do nothing for neither.’ Sometimes it feels like an intoxicating one-night stand. Other times, I feel as if I’m turning tricks. $100 an hour, no kissing. The rest of the time I’m just looking for love.
So, remember: do the writing before having the shower, making the coffee or having a wee. Do the writing f irst. Anything you are tempted to procrastinate with, write down on a piece of paper and use it as a reward. Yes, you can dust the vase cabinet. After you have written for an hour. Chances are that the vase cabinet dusting won’t seem as urgent then. And you may even keep writing. Because you will f ind that motivation follows action. And as uninspired, self-loathing, not-in-the-mood and knackered as you feel when you sit down to write, if you force yourself to write, you may f ind you do more than you expect.