I binge-watched How to Get Away with Murder for the past two days instead of doing anything productive. It’s 11PM.
Let’s talk about procrastination.
Specifically, procrastination with writing (because that seems to be something that reoccurs in my life).
I’ll say it: writing is hard. It takes commitment, patience, and probably 4 cups of coffee (or if you don’t drink coffee like me, 3 bags of chips) to come up with anything.
Thus, writing is easy to put off. And I usually do put it off.
But is How to Get Away with Murder really worth the amount of stress I’ll eventually feel when I need to write something last minute?
(Absolutely, because Viola Davis is amazing.)
No! I have enough stress in my life. I know that procrastinating will only make things worse, and I know I shouldn’t do it. So why do I?
Usually, it’s because I’m stuck. I don’t know what to write about; I don’t know what to do. I reason to myself that if I’m not going to come up with anything substantial, I might as well relax.
This is a trrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaap. Don’t fall for it. I have too many times.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 27 times with hour long episodes, shame on ShondaLand for producing great TV shows.
(Seriously, I’ll probably watch Scandal and Grey’s Anatomy now).
So, what do I do? How do I stop myself from procrastinating?
You could get someone to take away the things that distract you. You can set up a routine where you work for 45 minutes and break for 15. You could also try to write around people that are working on their homework (so you feel the pressure to be productive).
If you’re stuck on what to write about or how to write something, list possible options and work from there.
Do anything you can possibly think of to get your writing done (and have results that satisfy you). Take breaks in between, and don’t stress (which is a lot harder than it sounds, but we have a blog post on stress here!). Eat, and sleep.
It doesn’t matter if you want to know whether or not Wes killed his mother, or what Annalise is going to do with the blackmail from Philip, or why Laurel and Wes kissed (seriously Laurel, you deserve better). You need to ignore all of that and persevere. You can’t get distracted; that’s how a procrastination binge gets you.
Because the only thing more painful than writing is blaming yourself for putting it off.
.
.
Although, I don’t see anything wrong with taking another short break to... start an episode of Scandal.
But only just one.
Outtie,
Jameson