As I’ve mentioned in the past, I am a master To Do list creator. I make them on scrap pieces of paper, in Excel, on Cozi, on a mini-whiteboard. I litter the house with them until “consolidate To Do lists” becomes another task on my current list. What I’m not good at is crossing things off of those lists. Sometimes I’ll find a list from a month–or a year–ago, and I won’t be able to cross a single thing off of it. All I end up with is a bunch of things I forgot I had to do. My lists are full of things that are high-priority but boring, or complicated, or time-consuming (or all three), and things that are more fun but low-priority. I can’t possibly do everything, at least not in one day, so I procrastinate doing the awful high-priority things because if I do them I won’t have time to do the fun things, but then I feel too guilty to do the fun things instead. I freeze, unable to do anything, and end up wasting whatever time I have reading lolcats and playing online games. I manage to get the bills paid on time and the laundry done, but anything that doesn’t have a deadline can sit for days or weeks, or longer.
As you can probably tell from my recent posts, lately this has been most frustrating when it comes to my writing. I make To Do lists that include writing and editing both fiction and blog posts on them. I make “unschedules” that include writing time and then don’t write in those blocks of time. Part of my problem right now is that I need to finish what will hopefully be the final edit of my short story “Me & Marie” so I can send it out into the world and see if anyone will publish it. I don’t know if I’m just burned out on the story because I’ve been working on it for so long, or if I’m afraid of rejection, or if I’m bored by the idea of a close proofreading at this time, but it’s become a bottleneck. I feel like I can’t move on to focusing on my novel until I get this story taken care of, and it’s just not happening.
So, out of desperation, I decided to go back to the procrastination book I stumbled on almost two years ago. I figured I would re-read the chapters on the one week experiment and unschedules and see if there was something I was forgetting. But when I opened the book on my Kindle, I decided almost on a whim to take a look at the table of contents and there was the title for the very next chapter, the one I’d never gotten around to reading: “Learning to say yes and no.” I’ve just started reading it, but already I can see it deals directly with my To Do list issue. The first line says
Procrastination can be an indirect way to say no when we are unable to say no directly; it can also represent “stealing” time to spend on things we can’t openly say yes to.
I have been doing both of these things. While the chapters on setting a short-term goal and scheduling time to accomplish that goal were useful and I definitely need to revisit them, it’s clear that I stopped reading a little too early. Guess my next goal should be reading a couple chapters in this book!
Did you like this? If so, please bookmark it,
Fellow To-Do-Listers unite! Form of… a giant to do list that hangs on the wall next to the massive collage of yellow post-it notes!
I’m so sorry you’re feeling frustrated about your writing project(s). Do you have a group of writerly friends that help keep you motivated or on track? Not sure if this will mean anything to you, but I’ll throw this out there —
I’m in the process of editing my current WIP. And, as you described above, it’s utter tedium. I get aggravated because I’m not actually creating anything. I actually get cranky (lol). So, to try and balance the tedium of edits, I spend some of my time world building my next novel. I am also starting a weekly series of Choose Your Own Adventure type shorts — 500 words maximum so it’s not like it will overtake my WIP at all. The tiny creative outlet really helps me and when I sit back down to edit I’m more focused. It’s like when people are too antsy to sit down so they have to exercise first. I’m exercising my creative brain before I sit down and edit. I also found a crit partner on Twitter. We exchange work every other week. Being involved with other writers really helps me, too.
Sorry, this was longer than either of us wanted. I just feel badly that you’re frustrated. If you want to chat more, email me. I’d love to hear more about your writing projects.
Jen
Wow we have a lot in common! I’m the same in terms of the To-Do lists. It’s a banner day when I uncover an old list and can cross off some of the items. I had Eric download the procrastination book you recommended to his Kindle and then I completely forgot about it! I think you’re right about the “yes/no” stuff. I put things on the lists that I know I SHOULD do, but in truth I don’t WANT to do them. Good luck with finishing the short story! Keep in mind that it’s a really good feeling to get something DONE.
Thanks for your comments, Jen. Your idea about keeping a creative outlet going during editing is really good advice. Back in my more productive days I used to hop between projects so that I always had something going, and I think it would be helpful to me to start doing it again. I do have a couple of real-life writerly friends who are, unfortunately, also stuck at the moment, so I think we need to start pushing each other again. And with you in my corner, I think I can get myself pulled out of this rut and back on track 🙂
Thanks for the encouragement, Kim. I actually forgot about the book too! I was trying to work with another book on achieving your goals and was getting frustrated that it wasn’t working for me when I remembered the procrastination book. It really did help me the first time around, and it’s written by two women who have experience with procrastination, so they understand what it’s like and they say it’s almost inevitable that you’ll backslide. The important thing is to pick yourself back up and try again.