How to avoid procrastinating and get writing

Remember last year: the pain of putting off that report day after day, finally bashing it out in a blind panic the night before it was due?   Not only does this leave you a stress-addled mess, but it means your cobbled-together work won’t represent the best you can actually do. It could even mean you miss out on business you really should have won.

Why do we procrastinate?

We procrastinate for several reasons. Feeling overwhelmed by the size of a project; feeling out of your depth; fear of failure (or even of success); perfectionism; other tasks distracting you: these may all be to blame. Ultimately, as Mark Forster points out in Do It Tomorrow – and Other Secrets of Time Management, each of these reasons stems from our reactive mind viewing whatever it is we have to do as a threat (risking failure etc). By avoiding the work, we avoid the danger.

Only temporarily of course. In reality, we all know that eventually we will be in a worse position.

Stop the putting-off cycle

These tricks can help you start as you mean to go on (willpower required):

• Lie to yourself. Procrastinators are practised self-deceivers (‘I’ll just spend five minutes on Facebook’; ‘I’ll get up at 5am tomorrow to get started’; ‘I’m sure I can write the whole thing in one day’). Put this skill to good use. Mark Forster recommends lying to one’s own reactive brain to stop it from feeling threatened. Tell yourself: ‘I won’t start the proposal now; I’ll just get out the brief’. With the reactive mind thus comforted, you may find yourself carrying on without even realising. If not, just keep adjusting the lie to take you a bit further each time: ‘I won’t start writing yet; I’ll just make a few notes’ … ‘I’ll just make a spidergram of ideas’ and so on.
• Little and often. Set a time to start and stick to it. Then work in timed chunks – start small if need be (say, ten or fifteen minutes) and work up. You’ll find an amount of time that’s best for you, but don’t exceed an hour. Again, to break through panic, try telling yourself you’ll just work for five or ten minutes. Once those minutes have passed, you’ll probably be in your stride already. If not, take two or three minutes off, and start again. Increase each work session by a few minutes.
• Take breaks. When the time is up for one session, stop – even if you are mid-sentence. Knowing a break is coming can perk you up; taking the break allows you to re-focus, letting you come back refreshed and more productive than if you drag on for hours at a time. A quick change of scene – even a good stretch – can do wonders here.
• Set goals, but keep them realistic. A daily to-do list is best – there’s nothing like ticking off completed items (however seemingly small) for keeping you motivated to carry on.

Of course, most resolutions are fated to be thrown out after a single slip-up. But to give in to discouragement after one lost day and start procrastinating all over again would be the equivalent of giving in to one slice of cheesecake, then despairingly deciding you may as well eat everything in the fridge. You’re left feeling queasy, angry and with considerably less to show for it. You deserve better.