Yesterday, I was “in the weeds,” as we used to say in the restaurant business. Partly due to my own procrastination, but also because I had a deadline to meet for a client that took precedence over my little passion project. So it’s only fitting that this entire digest is devoted to the art of procrastination.
Maybe you think I intentionally waited to send it until today, but I assure you I didn’t.
Are you even a writer, if you don’t procrastinate?
I am always writing, all day, every day.
At the gym, on the treadmill, I am writing. Sitting in the pick-up line at my daughter’s school, I am writing. Laying in bed at night, trying to fall asleep, I am writing.
You get the idea — but, wait, you ask, “How are you writing without a pen, paper, or a device?”
I use the term “writing” loosely here. The truth is my brain never shuts off. I always have a running commentary going in my head. Maybe it is more that I am thinking about writing, than actually writing.
Whether it is this newsletter, a blog post for a client, a resource for my online course, or a sales landing page; I am working it out in my head. If I stumble across a particularly useful line in my thoughts, I’ll break my stream of consciousness, and record a voice note or stop and tap it out in my notes app on my phone. I’ve been known to stop mid-workout to quickly jot down an idea.
Like a lot of writers, the writing I get paid to do sometimes takes a back seat to the writing I want to do. If there are any clients reading this, I appreciate you and I love writing for you. I promise I will meet your deadline (I just can’t seem to meet my own).
Writing is hard work. The muse doesn't always cooperate and some days I feel like I am just rearranging words on paper until my entire screen looks like a word search grid.
A Glimpse into My Writing Process
Procrastination has always been part of my process and I find that I write much better under pressure. Some of my best ad copy has been produced at midnight, the night before a deadline. I’ll be in a state of panic when a lightbulb goes off and then I start playing beat-the-clock. But, no matter what happens, it always gets done.
I blame my procrastination behavior on grad school. I’ve always been a decent writer, albeit a late bloomer (as an undergrad, I did a lot of writing, but I didn’t start pursuing writing as a career until I was in my 30s. I’ve always gotten A’s - whether it was a paper on the theme of virtue in Shakespeare’s Troilus & Cressida or a research paper on behavioral disorders for a child psych class.
I could tell you all the things I do to get ready to write, but I think it’s more interesting to talk about what I DON’T do.
I don’t write drafts, I edit as I go.
I don’t work from an outline, I dump it all out on the page and then organize it.
I rarely plan ahead, other than in a very broad, topical sense.
I NEVER EVER delete anything permanently, I just add it to my ginormous swipe file.
I don’t let anyone read my WIPs, when I feel I am at a good spot, then and only then do I share my writing.
One thing I do religiously is to ALWAYS start compiling my research early, so when I actually do sit down to write, I have it in order with my notes in hand. Then the real work begins.
“Work finally begins, when the fear of doing nothing exceeds the fear of doing it badly.” - Alain de Botton
Standing on the Shoulders of Giants
If you procrastinate, know that you are in good company. A lot of famous, high-achieving individuals are well-known procrastinators. Among them:
JK Rowling
Mozart
Frank Lloyd Wright
Leonardo Da Vinci
Victor Hugo
Steve Jobs
The truth of writing is that no one really sees the mistakes, the struggles, or the feedback. Multiple versions are produced before a piece of writing is finalized.
When I write for clients, especially agency clients, I am expected to follow a process. I have to submit a V1, gather feedback from the agency, send it to the client for feedback, and then produce a V2, and the cycle begins again until the copy is finalized.
When a piece of content goes out into the world, all the reader sees is the finished piece. This is why it does no good to compare yourself to other writers. You are comparing your behind-the-scenes to their highlight reel.
Writing is an Infinite Loop
Until I took an Advanced Writers Seminar in graduate school, I had little appreciation for the writing process. I didn’t think I actually had a process - at least not in the very formal sense that we are taught the steps in the writing process:
Prewrite
Plan/Outline
Draft
Revise
Edit/Proofread
Publish
I remember being taught these exact steps in the same linear fashion in high school, but writing isn’t linear at all - it’s more of an infinite loop, meaning it flows in the shape of an infinity symbol, going forward and backward as many times as you need to until you are ready to publish. And even then, you aren’t really done.
William Faulkner said in his famous Paris Review interview, that he believed it to be impossible for any writer to craft a perfect story and made the observation that his own work, often fell short.
“In my opinion, if I could write all my work again, I am convinced that I would do it better, which is the healthiest condition for an artist. That’s why he keeps on working, trying again; he believes each time that this time he will do it, bring it off. Of course, he won’t, which is why this condition is healthy.” - William Faulkner
Addressing the Muse
I loved my Advanced Writer’s Seminar - from the professor to my cohorts to the textbook. It still sits on my bookshelf today and I still use it to teach writing.
Writing as Craft and Magic by Carl Sessions Stepp is pretty much my writing bible, even though it was published in 2006.
Before taking that class and reading that book, I had never workshopped a piece or thought about how to “conjure the muse” when I was suffering from writer’s block. So when I talk about “writing all day, every day”, what I am really talking about is "trying to catch the muse.”
As Stepp says, “Writing is a lifestyle and a mindset. When writers are not directly writing, they are preparing to write or recovering from writing, constantly on the alert for the muse.”
He goes on to say, “Achieving magic in writing, then, requires energy. In this effort, you should proceed both directly and indirectly. You stimulate the muse when you actively deliberate on your writing, siphoning ideas and approaches to the surface by, for example, thinking, talking, and writing about them. Through indirection, you additionally take advantage of the brain’s mysterious, subconscious creative power. Once you whet its interest directly, the mind will continue working on an idea even while you are doing other things, such as exercising, playing, even sleeping.”
So, don’t fret, my friends, because even when you are procrastinating, you are actually writing.
#QOTD - How do you procrastinate?
There are many things that writers do to procrastinate, but you don’t have to be a writer to master the art of procrastination.
We all procrastinate in some form. And not just because we are trying to prolong an unpleasant task (although that can certainly be the case). Sometimes we procrastinate because we feel like we aren’t good enough (Imposter Syndrome) and we are afraid of producing something that sucks.
How do you procrastinate?
Do you binge-watch Netflix? Scroll through social? Clean and organize your house? Read? Workout?
Anecdotes on Procrastination
Victor Hugo famously put off writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame for an entire year, following the signing of his publishing contract in 1829. The story goes, that instead of writing the book, Hugo spent the next year pursuing other projects, entertaining guests, and doing everything he could to delay working on the book.
In August 1830, frustrated by Hugo’s procrastination, his publisher demanded that Hugo finish the book within the next six months- giving him a strict, non-negotiable deadline of February 1831.
Instead of delaying his work even further, Hugo devised a plan - he collected all his clothes and locked them away leaving himself nothing to wear except a large shawl. Without any suitable clothing to wear in public, he was no longer tempted to leave the house. He remained in his study and wrote during the Fall and Winter months and the book was published two weeks early on January 14, 1831.
Scientific Explanations
If you look at the science behind procrastination, one explanation comes from behavioral economics - “time inconsistency.” This refers to the tendency of the human brain to value immediate rewards more highly than future rewards.
Let’s face it, humans aren’t great at delayed gratification, especially in the immediate gratification age of the Internet. This is why we have a hard time sticking to an exercise regime, a diet, or a writing routine.
We are thinking about the here and now; we would rather be scrolling through social media or listening to our favorite podcast or having drinks with friends than working out or working on our novel. Why? Because the former are things we can do that will satisfy our NOW self; the latter are things we do to benefit our FUTURE self, which is an abstract concept at best.
No one is immune to procrastination, not even the ancient Greek philosophers. In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle argues that vice, lack of self-restraint (akrasia), and brutish- ness are to be avoided.
Loosely translated, akrasia means “lack of self-control” but “it has come to be used as a general term for the phenomenon known as weakness of will, or incontinence, the disposition to act contrary to one’s own considered judgment about what it is best to do.”
Sounds like procrastination to me.
It’s All About Mindset
According to Dr. Carol Dweck, a Stanford psychologist who studies motivation, procrastination stems from fear, and not necessarily a lack of inspiration. The one thing that keeps writers accountable (as I mentioned earlier) is having a deadline. But self-imposed deadlines, like the ones I give myself to get these newsletters published, aren’t as high stakes. No one is going to “fire me” if I’m late in getting my newsletter out.
This is where mindset and self-discipline come into play. Dweck distinguishes between two mindsets - fixed and growth. Those with a fixed mindset tend to take on tasks they already know they will be successful at, for them, it is more about natural ability. “Many people deliberately seek out easy tests where they can shine, rather than tackling harder material that isn’t as comfortable.” (The Atlantic)
Their biggest fear is finding out that they don’t have what it takes.
Those with a growth mindset, thrive when challenged. These individuals tend to see challenges as an “opportunity to deepen their talents.”(The Atlantic)
Much of what we learn in school fosters a fixed mindset. We only see the finished product and not the failures. We read Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame, without the context of knowing that he almost didn’t finish it. We don’t study the rough drafts of Hemingway, Dickinson, or Melville or read texts that were never published.
The same can be said in just about any subject - we study scientific theories and mathematical equations that have been proven; our history books are filled with stories told from a single perspective; our psychology textbooks don’t necessarily describe behavior from a “pop psychology” standpoint but from the views of well-known psychologists such as Freud, Jung, and B.F. Skinner.
As Dweck says, and as I also mentioned earlier, “You never see the mistakes or the struggle.”
It has been ingrained in us from a very early age that the result is the only thing that matters, and if the end result isn’t “good,” then the work doesn’t matter.
No wonder we procrastinate!
Notable Quotes
To wrap it up, here are a few notable quotes about procrastination.
“To get started, write one true sentence.” - Ernest Hemingway
“You must begin by making notes. You may have to make notes for years…When you think of something, when you recall something, put it where it belongs. Put it down when you think of it. You never recapture it quite as vividly the second time.” - F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Procrastination gives you time to consider divergent ideas, to think in nonlinear ways, to make unexpected leaps.” - Adam Grant
“Procrastination is not a form of laziness at all. It's a coping mechanism for stress.” - Mel Robbins
NOTE: If you struggle with procrastination, imposter syndrome, or a general fear of failure, I highly recommend Mel Robbin’s books: The Five Second Rule and The High Five Habit.
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