3 Techniques I Use To Overcome My Writer’s Procrastination
You can follow these if you’re delaying before starting to write your next piece.
I love to write. But it’s hard to avoid procrastination at times. Sometimes I feel like I want to write a lot but I end up wasting my time. Most often I waste time watching YoutTube videos, playing games, using social media, etc.
It’s like my mind constantly wants to find something else to delay the writing. Even sometimes, a little mosquito can be the reason for a distraction that my mind wanted!
And before I know, an hour or two is already gone! This happens to me a lot. But recently, I’ve been trying hard to follow some techniques to reduce my procrastination habit.
Procrastination works like some kind of stress relief. So, it’s quite hard to overcome this completely because most of our life is associated with stress, no matter what we do. But with gradual practice, I believe it’s very much possible to reduce procrastination.
Before I begin with the techniques, let’s start with explaining some important insights about procrastination:
What is procrastination?
Procrastination is nothing but the action of delaying or postponing your tasks. It may sound like laziness but it’s not. Procrastinators often put off doing their tasks or postpone their tasks to the very last moment. It’s one kind of a habit too.
Why do we procrastinate?
There can be various reasons for procrastination.
Psychologists have identified various drivers of procrastination, from low self-confidence to anxiety, a lack of structure, and, simply, an inability to motivate oneself to complete unpleasant tasks. Research has also shown that procrastination is closely linked to rumination, or becoming fixated on negative thoughts. — PsychologyToday
In my case, it’s often the negative thoughts, distractions, and delaying the important tasks to do other entertaining things.
Here are the 3 techniques I use to overcome my writer’s procrastination, with takeaways for you.
1. It’s now or never
In my opinion, this is a great way to deal with procrastination.
I mean with procrastination, the problem isn’t really working — it’s the habit of avoiding the work. We often tend to delay before starting to do something productive. So, why not make our minds think like “it’s either now nor never?”
I thought if I think like this I can reduce my procrastinating. And most of the time, this mindset works like a charm for me.
In my case, most of the procrastination happens before starting to write an article. It’s like a thousand negative thoughts hit me at the same time!
Whenever I feel like I’m procrastinating, I try to stop thinking about anything else and go straight into work — it’s now or never!
And once I start, I can almost go with the flow. There are some exceptions though.
This quote by Michael Landon is a perfect fit to mention here:
Whatever you want to do, do it now. There are only so many tomorrows. — Michael Landon
Sometimes, I will get distracted while writing. That’s why I try to avoid any kind of distractions to stay focused. I wrote an article about something similar yesterday.
Also, whenever I start writing a big informative article, I always try to break down the entire article into smaller pieces. If you feel overwhelmed while writing your next article, you should consider doing this as well.
Takeaway: Practice and make your mind think “it’s now or never!” Whenever writing a big article with lots of research, break the entire article into smaller pieces at first.
2. Overcoming writing procrastination with writing
This one is very useful for me.
Whenever I start to procrastinate before writing an article, I will use that procrastination to write other things.
Now, you may ask what did I mean by this? Okay, let me explain.
Well, the idea is very simple.
Most often while procrastinating, you tend to do your favorite things as an excuse to delay the main tasks, right? Sometimes it can be watching TV, YouTube, sometimes it can be browsing social media, playing games or it can be reading a book.
Let’s say you don’t do any of these and you start to write something really exciting that you would love to write. It can be anything from a funny joke to even an adult story(!). Then you are actually not procrastinating before writing any more. Awesome!
I do exactly this. If I procrastinate before writing a really long, tough, researchful article that I am tired of writing, I start to write other articles that excite me.
Also sometimes, if I get tired of writing in front of my PC or laptop, I take my phone to write there with soothing music playing in my earphones. If get tired of sitting in the same room and writing, I simply go to other rooms or even outside with my laptop to concentrate on my writing differently.
This way, I can trick my mind from procrastinating.
Because procrastination is like the activation energy of a chemical reaction. To get out of procrastination, you need a little push — just like the molecules need to achieve the activation energy to perform a chemical reaction!
I push myself to start writing again with the things I like to write and however I like to write!
I definitely suggest you try this technique. And because procrastination is one kind of a habit, if you do this often the habit of delaying your writing will be gone before you even know!
Takeaway: Make exciting writing your habit of overcoming writer’s procrastination. Write however you like to write to make yourself more comfortable with writing.
3. Creating an outline or structuring my article before writing
When I started writing online back in 2020 during the lockdown, I suffered from procrastination a lot because I wasn’t used to structuring my articles before writing.
That’s why my articles used to take a lot of time to complete. Then I would take a break and procrastinate before starting writing again.
But now I structure my entire article before even writing the introduction. This saves me a lot of time. Because I know exactly what my article will cover and I can simply follow the main outlines.
I’ll mention the steps I follow to create the first draft of my articles so that you can get the idea:
● At first, I try to come up with a headline using the idea I have in mind. It’s definitely not the final one and most often I come back to it later to make it exciting.
● Then, I write down the things that I want to talk about. Those are my main points and the body of my article.
● After creating the outline, I start to write the introduction. I always try to start with something interesting or something that will hook my readers.
● Then I can work with the main points one by one. I can even come up with new ideas if I start to write a point because I’m thinking about the main headlines in the back of my mind. Then I can add those points to the article as well.
● And lastly, I’ll write the conclusion. I try to write my personal opinion in this section. I also keep some takeaways for my readers. I’ll give some advice according to the topic of my article or I’ll simply mention the main points and takeaways from those points.
That’s how I write my articles in a short time. And I don’t procrastinate while writing the article because I simply go with the flow.
I start with creating the outline, start writing and just follow my outline to finish the draft. This really helped me deal with my writer’s procrastination.
Takeaway: Create an outline before starting to write to stop yourself from getting overwhelmed and procrastinating. Then follow your outline to complete your article.
Final thoughts
We all want to be successful as a writer. And procrastination or delaying writing doesn’t help to achieve this at all.
Here is a wonderful quote by Benjamin Franklin:
You may delay, but time will not, and lost time is never found again. — Benjamin Franklin.
So, we need to stop procrastinating. It’s time to stop wasting time with too much procrastination, my fellow writers!
However, at the end of the day, overcoming procrastination is a long-term process. It’s just like changing the habit you are most used to. But if you can practice the techniques regularly, it’s very possible to break this bad habit.
Lastly, here are all the takeaways again before you leave to help you take them away together! 😉
- Practice and make your mind think “it’s now or never!” Whenever writing a big article with lots of research, break the entire article into smaller pieces at first.
- Make exciting writing your habit of overcoming writer’s procrastination. Write however you like to write to make yourself more comfortable with writing.
- Create an outline before starting to write to stop yourself from getting overwhelmed and procrastinating. Then follow your outline to complete your article.
Thanks for reading as always!
