Procrastination

I receive an email newsletter from Tomorrow's Professor that often has interesting articles. But today's article felt a bit condescending to me, and I found myself wondering at its effectiveness. That got me thinking what my response would be to each of these procrastination thoughts.

Ten Ways of Thinking that Lead to Writing Procrastination -and Rebuttals to Those Thoughts

* I need to warm up first by writing some email.
** Rebuttal: You can warm up by starting the work slowly, making a list of what you will do, reading over your notes or writing from yesterday.
Okay, go for it then! Email might be a way of getting "warmed up" but it can also eat up a huge amount of time, so make sure you limit it in one way or another. But if that's what works for you, do it. If writing email distracts you and you never get to the writing, then it's not a good strategy and you need to find some other way to warm up.

* I'm not in a good mood and I don't write well when I'm not in a good mood - I'll do it later when I feel better.
** Rebuttal: Nothing will make you feel as good as getting something done. The main reason for your bad mood is that you don't really want to do this task, so getting it out of the way will feel great.
I understand not wanting to write when in a foul mood, but mostly those moods convince me that I don't have the ability to write. This is where I need to encouragement (read kick in the ass) from a good friend to get me going. Telling myself I'll feel better after writing something seldom seems to work. Alternately, if my friends' collective feet are getting tired of kicking me, I undertake some non-writing, writing-related activity, like cleaning up notes, or annotating a text that I'll be using. At least then the project is moving forward.

* Life is so hard - I can't believe I have to do this unpleasant task. I'll even it out by doing something more fun first.
** Rebuttal: Yes, life is hard, and it's terrible that you have to do this task. That's why you will reward yourself after you do the task. Otherwise you're applying backwards conditioning, which doesn't work. And don't forget to plan enough fun and relaxation time into your schedule.
'Fraid this one doesn't apply to me. My parents and life already taught me that the unpleasant tasks are better to get done and out of the way as soon as possible so they aren't hanging over me. So I don't know what I'd say. I know if someone came to me saying "life is hard" I'd be sorely tempted to reply "suck it up, buttercup! you think you're the only one who finds life hard? get over yourself and deal with it!" But I don't think that would necessarily be helpful!

* I'll definitely do it, in a minute or so
* Rebuttal: Set a timer, or that minute could last 2 hours. When the timer goes off, do the task. Even better, do it now!
Ugh! Having a timer jangling in my ear because I'm doing something else and need to limit my time? I can't imagine doing so - the thought of a timer irritates me so much I just couldn't do it. I understand the impetus behind the thought, but I suppose my suggestion instead would be to do the writing right away and save whatever you wanted to do for "a minute or so" as a reward.

* After this bad thing is over in my life (midterms, meeting, in-law visit, etc.) my life will seem easier and I'll be able to do my task on a daily basis. So I'll wait until then.
** Rebuttal: Life is always like this. You can afford to do 15 minutes of work today, can't you? This is the one small act you can do to make your life a little better.
Okay, quitting smoking during spring finals week taught me that there is never a good time for anything, so not an issue. But I must say the rhetorical "you can afford...?" strikes me as a bit condescending. Perhaps my answer to someone with this procrastination would point out that the anticipated daily basis will likely never arise, and even if it does, the wealth of time now at your disposal can be just as disabling as the "bad thing" you're waiting for to end. A sort of "be careful what you wish for" where wishing for a wealth of time and then getting it can be incredibly frustrating when what you write during that wealth of time is either miniscule or worthless!

* I just don't feel like it
** Rebuttal: So what? Do it anyway! If you wait until you feel like it, the task will get done in 10 years if you're lucky. They only way to make yourself feel like it is to get started and get into the flow of the work.
This one I get. There are some days I just don't feel like doing it. But beating myself up by telling myself that it doesn't matter that I don't feel like it invalidates my actually feeling of not wanting to do it! It does matter - it's my feeling and telling myself that I shouldn't be feeling it just invalidates my own experience of it. On these days, I figure it's okay to acknowledge I don't want to do it IF I do something else that is productive and will get me there. On a day like this, I might give myself a choice between the writing project and course prep. Even if I don't want to do either, I still have a choice, and regardless of which one I choose, I get something productive done. If I choose course prep, then on the day I do feel more like writing, I won't have to stop to get the course prep done, and if I write, then, well, I write!

* Why do just a little today - I'll do double tomorrow - I work better when I feel pressure anyway.
** Rebuttal: It's a fallacy that you work better under pressure. It's not true, because anxiety reduces creativity and clear thinking. And doing double the next day will backfire. You will feel less like doing it tomorrow because you've decided you must do double the work, and it will seem more overwhelming and less appealing, so you're even more likely to put it off until the next day.
Okay, I do fall victim to this one sometimes, though not because I think I work well under pressure, but because I just want to do a little today. But deep down, I know that what I'm really saying is I don't feel like doing it, or I'm not in a good mood, and I need to address the underlying reason why I don't want to do it today, or that reason will double in size the next day!

* I can only work in one place (the library, a café, my office) and that place isn't available or I can't get there - so there's no point in working at all.
** Rebuttal: You'd be surprised how much work you can get done no matter where you are. Even if you don't have your laptop with you, you can pull out a scrap of paper and write down a few notes on what you'd like to accomplish in the section you've been working on. Try it!
I've never really felt constrained to only write in my office for example, though I have felt like only writing there can be stultifying sometimes (I have a desktop computer). It is important to learn to write wherever you need to be, and this is just simply a skill that needs to be learned by undertaking it. I suppose if I knew someone who had problems writing elsewhere, I would encourage them to set a weekly challenge of writing in one different space each week to get over that feeling of being only able to write in one space. So I guess my advice would reflect the writer's advice.

* I'm not sure how to do this - I don't know how sitting down and writing will enable me to do it -- it's just hopeless so why even start?
** Rebuttal: If you're not clear enough on what to do, writing may be the only way to get you out of this state. If you truly need help from someone else on this problem, you need to write down the questions clearly. The process of writing them down may clarify the issue for you.
Yes. The process of writing MIGHT clarify the issue. But it also might cloud the issue. I recently read a fairly convincing argument over at Not of General Interest about the potential dangers of writing before you have a clear idea of what you need to write. I realize this answer isn't advocating free writing, but writing out questions, though I really get the idea that sometimes an idea needs to gestate. One of the things I've always loved about conference papers is that there's a huge lag time between proposal and paper, so the idea can gestate for a very long time, which for me means I produce a better paper than say a seminar paper that gets written over the space of a couple of weeks. The downside to "gestating" is that it's hard to tell the difference between it and simple procrastination, so I think you have to be a more experienced writer to know which one is which.

* I didn't write well yesterday, so today will be terrible.
** Rebuttal: Often bad writing days are followed by better ones. The reason to write daily is that your brain is still plugging away on it while you're doing other things or sleeping. So you may surprise yourself today!
Do people really believe that a bad writing day is the start of a string of bad writing days? I suppose my suggestion might be to go back to what you wrote and see if it really is that bad. It might have only felt bad and in the light of a new day might actually have been good. And if it really was bad? Erase all trace of it and start from scratch!