Procrastinate Now!
This exercise is your self-destruct button for procrastination. Best Practice: Do it when you're supposed to be writing.
If you’re going to procrastinate anyway, you might as well do this exercise. It takes a solid, satisfying 15 minutes and helps open the door between your conscious and subconscious mind, which is where creativity and inspiration reside.
I’m handing this procrastination tool to you, placing it in your lap to purr over. Go ahead: Pick it up. Play with it. You know you want to. It’s so much more enticing than having to think your way into what you’re supposed to be doing today.
I’ll do it with you, because I need help shifting my brain from imbibing other peoples’ creativity (listening to Fatal Flame by Linday Faye on Audible, for example) to producing evidence of my own.
I’ve been staring at my laptop screen for a good 10 minutes. Before that, I brewed up some iced tea for later, had ChatGPT fetch a list of 50 anti-inflammatory foods to help plan my shopping list, read a couple of old blog posts, did some laundry, faffed around on Facebook, touched base with a few clients to make sure they had their NaNoWriMo writing plans in order, texted one of my kids for a while, and checked the average mid-December temps in Paris.
It’s October. NaNoWriMo is in November and our trip is 10 weeks away, but why not check the weather now and start shopping around for the best boots for winter city walking? I mean, I’m only supposed to be writing …
I’m a writing + creativity coach and I’m a writer and creative, which means I can procrastinate just as well as my clients and every other writer I know. Probably better than most, if we’re being honest.
Here’s the thing.
I know how to address procrastination in myself as well as in others. I’m a habit coach, after all, so I’d better have a few tips and tricks up my sleeve. But sometimes I don’t want to face the point of my procrastination.
All procrastination has a point. I know this. And I know that even though it can take some brain work to figure out, it’s always worth it. Sometimes, though, I procrastinate the act of facing the point of my procrastination while I’m actually procrastinating. And it’s so bloody meta that I feel like my procrastination is going to spontaneously generate its own meme. But first, it’s going to do the dishes.
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