This is one of the most frustrating and puzzling obstacles we encounter whenever we set out to create something remarkable. After all, creative people love creating things. Writers love to write, painters love to paint, musicians love to play. So why do we spend so long avoiding and putting off doing the thing we love?
Iâll offer my own explanation shortly, but Iâd like to start by pointing out that procrastination is virtually epidemic among high-level creators. I used to think I was the only one who did it, and beat myself up over it. But having spent 14 years coaching creative pros of all descriptions, and heard a virtually identical story from hundreds of them, Iâm convinced itâs just an occupational hazard. Procrastination is normal behaviour for creatives. So it was no surprise that it reared its ugly head when I invited you to tell us about your creative blocks:
[My block is about] Taking action. I have ideas, but seem to spend more time studying all of the new materials I have about how to implement those ideas, trying to be sure I have it just right. I need to get content written for two sites I have set up, and seem to be stuck in studying how to get started.
If youâve been reading the creative blocks series carefully, youâll have noticed that this isnât the first time procrastination has popped up â itâs been a component of several of the blocks weâve covered already:
My problem is all about execution, I get too excited at first, involved in to many projects and then I get overloaded with things to do. This makes me procrastinate, do other less important things and many things doesnât get completed. This in turn makes me more overloaded, feel bad about myself and the threshold to to do what needs to be done gets huger and huger like an evil circle.
(Mats)
While my 9-5 job is quite creative (arts manager) I struggle to find time to write outside of work hours, writing being what I consider my first and favourite creative pursuit.
When I get home there is always something else to do â housework, seeing friends, spending time with my partner, catching up the news etc. Or else Iâm âtoo tiredâ.
Suggestions and strategies would be great! Aside from âSTOP PROCRASTINATINGâ đ )
At every decision making moment along the way I question incessantly whether Iâm doing the right thing. I fear that making the wrong decision will result in my work not meeting the very high standard I expect of it. Hence self-doubt, procrastination, and ultimately creative stagnation creep in. I have a ton of unfinished work. My unwillingness to commit affects not only my music but my ability to make career decisions, to find collaborators â even making everyday decisions on all kinds of things is a struggle!
(Anonymous)
So what exactly is procrastination, and what causes it?
I think of it as âDoing anything and everything but the work I really want/need to doâ. We all know the tell tale signs â instead of knuckling down to work, we spend hours surfing the web, answering e-mails, tidying the house, rearranging the filing cabinet, talking to friends walking the dog or watching TV.
As for the cause, I think Steven Pressfield nails it when he says that whenever we set ourselves a difficult challenge, then an invisible force called Resistance arises, which does everything in its power to distract and dissuade us from tackling the work head-on.
Why do we experience Resistance? Because every time we set out to do something amazing, our ego (a.k.a. conscious mind) feels threatened. Threatened from the outside, because we might fail, or attract criticism or ridicule. And threatened from the inside because once you open yourself up to your imagination, you never know what might come bubbling up from your unconscious mind when you let go of control.
Pushing past the Resistance means going through a wall of fear. This is true whatever medium youâre working in, although the effect varies depending on your situation.
If youâre a performer, you have an audience waiting, so when itâs showtime you need to stand there and deliver. You may even have someone barking âlights, camera, action!â to help you push through the fear. Itâs very intense â and explains why actors and musicians are more likely to complain of stage fright than procrastination.
But if youâre working alone in your office or studio, itâs easier to shy away from Resistance and start procrastinating. After all, who would ever know if you spent another 30 minutes in Google Reader or pottering about in the kitchen?
So for all of you reading this when you should really be doing something else, here are seven tried and tested ways to blast through that wall of Resistance and STOP PROCRASTINATING.
1. Decide in Advance
This is critical. If you leave it until Monday morning to decide whether youâre going to start work on that Big Scary New Project or rearrange your CDs into alphabetical order, then you donât need me to tell you which is most likely to win.
If you wait until work time before deciding what to do, you can always persuade yourself that it would be better to start the difficult work âlaterâ. But if you plan ahead, then when it comes to the crunch you know youâre either (a) working on what you promised yourself youâd do, or (b) procrastinating. Itâs a lot harder to admit to yourself âIâm going to procrastinateâ than it is to fool yourself by saying âIâm going to start work laterâ.
Decide beforehand when youâre going to start work. Then when the time comes, youâve got one less excuse for not doing it.
2. Make a Habit of It
This follows on from 1. and makes it even more powerful. If you know youâre supposed to be painting/writing/rehearsing every day at 8am or 3pm, then even harder to pretend youâre going to do it âlaterâ.
Iâve written quite a lot about the value of routines and rituals in getting creative work done, so I wonât labour the point here. Iâll just highlight a couple more ways they help you to beat procrastination:
- Momentum â doing the same thing day after day can build up momentum that crushes procrastination.
- Association â you come to associate certain times, places, people and objects with focused creative work. In Pavlovian fashion, each time you encounter the same circumstances, you experience emotions and behaviours associated with creative work.
3. Pretend Youâre Not Going to Do It
I love this one, from coach Mark Forster in his fabulously-titled productivity book Do It Tomorrow. When itâs time to start a challenging task, this is what you say to yourself:
Iâm not really going to start work, Iâm just going to get the equipment out.
For example:
Iâm not really going to start learning my lines, Iâm just going to get the script out.
Iâm not really going to the gym, Iâm just going to pack my kit in the bag.
Iâm not really going to start writing, Iâm just going to open the Word document.
Iâm not really going to make that difficult phone call, Iâm just going to get the phone out and look up the number.
Markâs theory is that telling yourself this kind of white lie somehow short-circuits the part of the brain that resists getting started. Once you start taking action and get out the kit you need, youâll find yourself starting the task almost automatically, with much less Resistance.
Iâve tried it, and it works! In fact, Iâm so intrigued by this that itâs actually fun to do. I tell myself Iâm just opening up Dragon NaturallySpeaking so that it will be ready âfor laterâ. And just writing the title of the article so I donât forget it. And just jotting down a few quick notes âŚ
Half an hour later Iâm happily absorbed in the writing process, striding up and down the room and dictating to the computer with music pulsating from the stereo. Having so much fun I wonder why I didnât start earlier. đ
4. Accept that it Will Never Be Perfect
This is the antidote to âtrying to be sure I have it just rightâ. Tell your self that you will never get it âjust rightâ â i.e perfect. There will always be something you miss, something that could be improved.
And thatâs OK. Because itâs better to finish something imperfect than never to let it see the light of day. Depending on the nature of the project, you may get the chance to revise or tweak it, and send your customers an updated version.
But even if you donât, even if this is your one and only shot, you still have a choice between shipping something thatâs 90-99% good enough and learning from the feedback â or never finishing, never shipping, never delighting anyone with it, and never reaping any of the rewards.
I know which Iâd choose.
5. Break It down
Thereâs a (possibly apocryphal) story about a man who ate a tractor by grinding each piece down into a fine powder and sprinkling it on his porridge every morning. I donât recommend you try this at home, but you can apply the same principle to your work.
- Think of a big, complex, challenging project that youâre working on at the moment. Imagine all the tasks involved and all the time and effort theyâll take. How do you feel? A little overwhelmed?
- Now isolate out the very first task youâll have to do. Imagine doing that. How does that feel? A bit more manageable?
- Now think of the very first step of that very first task. E.g. if it involves creating or modifying a computer document, the first step is simply opening it. How does that feel? A piece of cake, huh?
Whenever youâre feeling overwhelmed, run through this process â grinding the task down to the smallest possible next action.
6. Sprint against the Clock
Use a timer to create an artificial deadline. This is how the Pomodoro Technique works â you set the timer for 25 minutes and work flat out until the bell rings, then reward yourself with a 5 minute break.
Studies have shown that we canât concentrate on a task for longer than about 20-25 minutes, so dividing your worktime up into Pomodoros helps you make the most of your concentration span. The 5 minute break also acts as an incentive to get things done during the Pomodoro, and reduces the temptation to look for distractions.
7. Put Yourself on the Line
This one is the antidote to the âNo-one would ever know if I spent the whole morning reading the paperâ excuse. Make a public commitment to one or more people who you will report back to once youâve done the work (or not).
Some writers have âwriting buddiesâ who are responsible for egging each other on and holding each other accountable for completing their daily and weekly quota of words. National Novel Writing Month uses the same principle â every year, hundreds of writers commit to writing a novel in 30 days, and updating each other of their progress.
Coaching clients often tell me that one reason for coming to see me is because they know they are more likely to take action towards their goals when they have to report back to me.
I used the same principle a couple of years ago, when I told my blog readers at Wishful Thinking that I was going to meditate every day for a year â and report back to them at the end of the year. Can you imagine how I would have felt if I â the coach, the agent of change! â had had to report back that I didnât see it through? There were a few days when I was really tempted to skip my practice, and one of the biggest thing stopping me was the thought âwhat will you tell your readers?â. (Hereâs how I got on.)
Over to You
When and where are you most likely to procrastinate?
How do you beat procrastination?
About the Author: Mark McGuinness is a creative coach with over 15 yearsâ experience of helping people get past their creative blocks and into the creative zone.
View Comments (36)
Amrit,
I would take a look at those "urgent" tasks and make sure that you aren't overdoing things so you can do "good enough," that others aren't making crises in your life, and that you haven't taken on more than you can realistically get done.
Urgent tasks are dangerous because they get our adrenaline going and we get so wrapped up in them, we forget our real priorities. Since you used quotation marks, I think you already know that many of those "urgent" things really aren't. See if you can downgrade them and reclaim your time.
Thank you sooo very much for this article. I 2nd everything Geoff wrote. I've learnt so much this morning from your article and everyone's comments. Thanks everyone!! I'm off to put the laundry away, feed the kids lunch, then write the first paragraph :-)
Pretend not to do it? That's a new one. I gotta try that.
Thanks everyone for the great comments and suggestions.
@ Orna -- Love the "two hour battery life" tip! Except it's more like 10 minutes with my old MacBook Pro battery. :-(
@ Geoff - "So, to find out that itâs not a flaw in me, but a trait common to people like me, really helps." Very pleased to hear it -- this was one of my main goals for writing this whole series.
@ Abby - Great example. If you haven't seen them already, you might like to look at these two pieces on task overwhelm and information overload.
@ Katie - "âAnything worth doing, is worth doing poorly at first.â Love it! I can see myself using that ...
@ Bamboo Forest -- Yes, I often find reverse thinking is the best option. ;-) And yes, determination is hard to beat.
@ David - Have you come across Tony Buzan's books Use Your Memory? Highly recommended if you want to improve your memory.
@ Deborah - Thanks for the (ahem) smashing video! ;-)
@ Claire - Thanks, that sounds a really good book. I used to be a Dreamer, more recently a Perfectionist. Blogging on a weekly schedule has helped me get over that!
@ Ian -- Interesting suggestion about leaving things out in the open. These days I have a tendency towards being a workaholic rather than a procrastinator, so I find it helpful to put things away in the evening! :-)
@ Amrit - Well if imagining the worst works for you, then carry on! I try to use that kind of negative motivation sparingly, as I get more enthusiastic if I focus on my desired outcome. But every once in awhile it pays to remind yourself of what's at stake.
Re finding time amid urgent priorities, I see Claire's given you some excellent suggestions. Also did you see this piece from earlier in the series? How to Find Time for Creative Work
@ Ellie - would love to hear if pretending not to do it works for you!
I would say that I tend to procrastinate the most when:
1. I'm tired.
2. I'm anxious (which is a really bad combination).
3. I'm overwhelmed.
I'm shattered! I thought I was the king of procrastination! All of you? Really?
Great post, great ideas. I will try them out. Soon.
This article made my day and hopefully the days to come because it told me that I was a high-level creator! I'm looking forward to my next great idea!
p.s. Now I understand why my piano students don't practice enough!
Hi Mark, great article as ever.
I think JM Coetzee sums up the fear of starting the project very well in these lines, from 'Disgrace':
"He has, if the truth be told, been putting it off for months: the moment when he must face the blank page, strike the first note, see what he is worth."
I think that says it all really, but you've got some great tips for beating it, thank you.
@ Mark - Sounds like a great recipe for procrastination!
@ Greenie - Sorry, you'll have to work harder if you want to win that contest. ;-)
@ Tara - Glad to make your day. Feel free to show this piece to your piano students. :-)
@ Mike - Great quotation, yes there's definitely something about identifying with the work, so that any (imagined) judgment is really a judgment on the creator.
I like the pretend not to do it idea... that's a new one for me!
My favorite way to approach procrastination is to evaluate what the part of me that wants to procrastinate is really trying to tell me. Usually, it's either trying to get something it needs, or protect me from something. It's probably not doing that in a smart way, but I can trust that that part of my mind is engaging in this bit of self-sabotage for some important reason. Once identified, sometimes I can reassure that part of my mind that it's safe or will get what it needs without having to procrastinate.
Is it afraid of something-- success or failure or confrontation? Is there some other need that's not being met-- like a need for more sleep or more unstructured time or more fun? Sometimes I'll sit down and write or doodle while trying to establish a connection or dialogue with Resistance. Unlike Steven Pressfield, I try to see my own Resistance not as an enemy but as a misguided friend trying to help me as best it can.