I live with a procrastinator. When he was enrolled in his college courses, my darling husband would wait until the night before a paper was due, then expect me to sit up all night and help him write it, knowing I had to be up at the ass crack of dawn with the kids.
I love my husband but half way through his BS in Business, I started planning his time for his papers. It drove me absolutely insane that he could never seem to start these things prior to the night before. All my nagging in the world, setting outlook reminders and calendar dates accomplished nothing, except the invariably sleepless night working on his papers.
I do not suffer from procrastination. A soldier that works with me pointed out that I don’t take breaks. I go from one target to the next without stopping to take a breath. So its no wonder that I’m sitting over here in Iraq, knowing I’ve got to finish rewriting a book before I can say, yes, the first draft is actually finished now and instead, reading a magazine. My lack of recharging or taking a breath is catching up with me.
I have the opposite problem than many writers do but that’s not a good thing. Just because I dive into revisions and rip out an entire book in a week doesn’t mean I’m good at it. I’m sure I’ve driven my agent insane with the lack of thoroughness on my part and I’m working on skills to improve.
But what about the writer who is constantly behind deadlines or struggling to meet deadlines? Psychology Today has a great article entitled Escape Artists by Steven Kotler that talks about coping mechanisms for beating the dreaded P word.
1: “Counteract the irrationality of human nature”. Concrete rewards now are better and easier to grasp than future ones. So Mr Kotler suggests looking forward with concrete, vivid visualizations of the future reward. Make it seem more real to you than whatever it is that’s luring you away. Imaging how good you’ll feel to have that deadline met. Really visualize it, then start working toward it.
2. “Short Term Gain, Long Term Pain”. I struggle with this daily. I want ice cream. I want to be thin. The two are mutually exclusive yet, almost invariably I choose the short term goal. I must visualize the long term goal and reward and take steps to achieve it. In other words, put the cookie down. For writers, pick the pen up (or in my case, open up Scrivener!). Steps toward the goal are better than standing in one place.
3. “Reduce Uncertainty”. How many times have you sat down to write only to realize that you’ve lost an hour of your precious time on Facebook and Twitter? Guilty as charged. Turn the internet off. Don’t check your email. Lock yourself in the bedroom so you don’t have to see the dirty dishes but take steps to focus on the task at hand and do them.
4. “Willpower.” Yeah, right. If only this were that easy. But willpower is like a muscle, according to Mr Kotler and in order for it to get stronger, one must practice. So sit down at your computer for an hour and write. Turn off the internet for One Hour. Focus. Remove the distractions. Soon, you’ll find yourself wondering where the time has gone when you’ve made it a daily part of your routine and your willpower will be stronger than ever.
I suck at will power and distractions. I deliberately write at work where I can’t access Twitter or many of the blogs that I enjoy reading. I get more done so that when I get to the CHU, I have built time in to screw off on the interweb (LOLcats is one my biggest time sucks). But when I get home and haven’t hit my word count for the day? It’s that much more frustrating and takes longer because the distractions are endless and alluring.
The bottom line is find something that works for you but recognizing that you have a challenge is the first part of solving the problem.
