Procrastination

 I spoke to a local group last month. Their theme for the meeting was procrastination.

It's not something I have a lot of experience with. I work for myself.  My only boss is me. I am probably my most exacting taskmaster. 

How do I get everything done?  I think the fact that I don’t have a lot of time helps.  I squeeze writing in between family and extended family and now school. It’s a tight space. There’s no time for writer’s block. There's no time to procrastinate. So when it’s time to write, I write. Even if it’s utter crap. (In writing that’s called a crap draft.) Here’s the thing, you can fix crap, you can’t fix a blank page. That same sense of get it done applies to more than just my writing. It's pretty much how I get through life in general. I wanted to put my thoughts on avoiding procrastination in concise terms for the talk. Here's what I came up with.

Love What You're Doing: I started a discussion about procrastination with my pottery professor. He said something very profound. Paraphrasing here…Artists don’t procrastinate because we love what we do. So maybe that’s something to think about. If there’s something in your life you’re always putting off, maybe it’s time to ask why? Some things just need done. Cleaning. Cooking. Chores. But life should also be filled with things we love. Things we feel passionate about. Maybe if your life is a series of putting it off as long as possible it's time to find something you love and can't wait to do. You'll get through the things you have to do faster in order to get to the things you love doing.

Nike…Just Do It: This isn’t just for the writers out there. It’s for life in general. Most of you follow my new love of pottery and have read about my promise to make 50 bowls—which grew into 100 bowls—for an Empty Bowl fundraiser.  My first bowls are inelegant, but the later ones were so much better. I set a deadline for myself and just did it. But even in the midst of it, there was a sense of accomplishment. I learned so much. So if you’ve said you’ll do it, or you have to do it, do it.

BUT Know your limits and set priorities.  When I started writing, I prioritized my life and my time. Family first, writing second, everything else after that.  There was this mom at school that constantly bugged me to come to salad bar days. Now, I volunteered often at school. When the kids wanted me there, that was my priority. They didn't care if I was at salad bar. So I went, but not often.  When this mom made a crack about me just sitting at home all day, I didn't justify my writing career. I just smiled and said, I don't chop lettuce and left it at that.  It might not always seem like it, but I know my limits and I try to avoid biting off more . . . uh lettuce than I can chew. I also know where my priorities are. That helps. For me it was always family first, then writing. Now it’s family, writing, pottery.

Set realistic goals. If you say you want to write a novel/build a rustic log cabin/run a marathon by the end of the year, you’re setting a lofty goal. I think goals of that size seem insurmountable and make it easy to procrastinate. But something more reasonable…write a chapter a month/find some wooded land to buy/run a 5K...those are doable. Breaking a large goal into smaller components helps.  When I'm writing I don’t think about the 300 pages. I think of it by the day. 10 pages.

Newton’s first law says a body at rest will stay at rest unless some force acts on it. Maybe that’s a boss or a spouse, but I think the most worthwhile source is internal. So maybe the best way to fight procrastination is to ask yourself why you’re putting something off and find a solution. Carve our more/specific times. Or even don’t do it. It's okay to decide something isn't working for you.

Perfection: I've already mentioned writing crap drafts. The lesson there is to allow yourself to not be perfect. Allow yourself to realize failure is an option, but not trying isn’t.

Pressure: My friend Susan and I were talking about procrastination. She works best under pressure. I do not. Realize how you work best and use that to get it done.

Next time you find yourself procrastinating, I hope you take a moment and ask yourself why. . . then find some solution.

Holly

PS. Have you missed our most recent Trippin' with Holly and Susan? You can catch up with them all on YouTube.

January Isn't the Only Fresh Start Time ~ @AuthorKristina Knight

We're fully into fall here on the North Coast. Chilly mornings, blustery winds, a little snow. School. Which means I'm back at my keyboard with purpose, because when she's home - even though I make a point to hit my word goals - I'm never fully into my writing. There are more interruptions. There are more distractions. There are more...well, everything. More cookies to be baked, more movies to be watched, move video games to be played. More conflict over brushing teeth, making beds, not having our faces stuck in our tablets all day.

I love having her home over school breaks, but I also love it when she's back in school, and the regularly scheduled programming of our life syncs back up. Which brings me to the point of this post: you don't have to wait for New Year's Day to reset your goals, your priorities, your...anything. The beautiful thing about goals, about objectives is that they can be started on a random Monday...or, heck, a Friday. We simply have to do the reset.

Just do it.

Way back in the 80s, Nike started the 'Just Do It' campaign, most of which featured Michael Jordan. As a kid, I loved those commercials. As an athlete, I loved those commercials. As a human who has a bit of a procrastination habit...I didn't love them. I didn't want to get up early to run on our little country road. I didn't want to be serious all through volleyball practices (and too often I wasn't serious enough). I didn't want to write that paper on Moby Dick and I didn't want to dissect that frog in biology.

Michael's (well, Nike's) message was that none of us really want to put in the extra time. But that putting in the extra time is what leads us to the rewards of a great game played, of an extra special vacation with the family, of knowing that we've done our best.

As an adult, there are still things I don't want to do. I still don't want to get up early to run (especially in the winter months) or dance. I don't want to not drink a Coke when I want. I don't want to do the laundry or make the beds or clean the bathroom. I don't always want to shut the world away and write my words for the day. But I like the feel of the house when the rooms are straightened and I like how I feel about myself when I hit that 2500 word daily goal by 11 am and I like that my jeans fit better when I haven't had an extra 1000 calories of soda in my diet. And so, I hear Michael Jordan's voice in my head when I don't want to do the things that I know I should do...and I just do them. I get up a little early to exercise, and I limit my soda intake, and I sit down to write my words...because those are things that I can control. Those are things that I can do to make myself the best Kristina that I can be.

Michael has a newer commercial, too, and I think I like the message of this one even more than the commercial because it asks question instead of demanding an answer. It's a "what if" question - what if his name wasn't in lights?

I like it because it's true. As writer, we don't have cheering stadiums filled with people cheering us on. We face the keyboard alone most days, and if we don't, no one is there to catch us. It can be easy to fall into the 'I'll write twice as much tomorrow' or 'I don't think this story is going anywhere, anyway' ruts. But what if, instead of letting those ruts take hold, we act a little bit more like Michael (or to use a star from the romance world, a little more like Nora) and just sit down and write? Sit down and edit? Sit down and do the things that we know have to be done for us to live the lives we want to live?

What is your 'what if'? 

Kristina Knight’s newest release, Perfect on Paper, is out now. Daisy MacIntosh needs a man, and any man will do. After being jilted by her ex - who is also her boss - she needs a date to the company retreat in Mexico. The only problem? Daisy doesn't have time to find a guy, and her ex is hinting that he'd like this work trip to become a reunion romance. Stepping in to become Daisy's pretend boyfriend isn't the best idea Nick Vega has had, but it's the only one he's got. But are they willing to risk their life-long friendship for a romance that might fizzle once they're back home?

Kristina Knight is a contemporary romance author, part-time swim-kid wrangler, and full-time ThinMints enthusiast. You can find out more the book and Kristina on her website, and feel free to stalk follow her on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.