Once again I’m too tired to think of anything novel to blog about so I’m letting myself be guided by other people’s posts. Once again, Ruth asks a pertinent question: what tips and tricks do you all have to avoid procrastination?
I’m sure I have nothing new to add here: break up the tasks into smaller bits, make a list, reward yourself when do, etc.
What got me thinking, though, was how much I can procrastinate if I have a biggish piece of writing to do. For example, a report, or a paper. (Which makes me think about how I haven’t written a paper in a while. But that’s another post, I think.)
Then I remembered reading, a few days ago, Kathryn’s post about binge writing.
The best tip I ever got about how to write, and how to set up a routine so that you’re productive and avoid those horror binges, I got from Hugh Rundle. Hugh recommended a little book called How to Write A Lot by Paul Silvia. (Thanks, Hugh!)
I’ll try and summarise Paul’s book:
- Writing is hard
- You’ll never have time to write, unless you make the time (and most of us can find the time if we want to)
- Unless you develop a writing routine you will end up “binge writing” – leaving things to the last minute, having to stay up all night and then lament being stuck indoors in front of your computer all weekend when all you really want to do is sit in the sunshine with your chihuahuas…
- You don’t need a lot of time in your day – 30 minutes? An hour? However much time you carve out for yourself, try to stick to it daily
- Break your writing project down into manageable bits. Do you need to do research? Reading? Writing an outline? Managing your references? It all counts
- Do a little every day. EVERY DAY. This all adds up and you don’t lose momentum! (Put your hand up if you have ever done this with a writing project: started off with good intentions where you actually got a bit of meaningful writing done, put it aside, and then come back a month or more later and you need to start all over again?)
- Do this for every writing project.
I have used this method and I can vouch for it – it works!
I’m pretty sure I’ve blogged about this whole procrastinating-when-writing thing and Paul Silvia’s antidote before, but I can’t seem to find the post, so this post by the Thesis Whisperer may be of interest.
So, for Ruth and Kathryn. Happy writing! 🙂
2 Comments
Good tips. Thankyou.
Paul Hagon has handed us all a template for next Wed’s #blogjune btw
Earlier in the week, when preparing a personal report, I practiced #shutupandwrite
I figured I would decant all the ideas flying around my head and clean up the format later. As it turns out it was a great piece of writing. I had been mulling over ideas for so long they came out well assembled. I need to find a balance between thinking time for myself and binge writing; and I think I need to stop fussing about layout so much that it becomes a procrastination blocker in itself.
I wonder whether #blogjune has highlighted the pleasure and necessity of writing at this career stage?
A few years I think it was “wow! this is all so WONDERFUL! and exciting, so we have a DUTY to make sure we are recording/saying this for the GOOD OF THE PROFESSION, so we MUST write!!!!” … which involved quite a bit of overestimation of i) how new the new things really were (different packaging, but disruption from something has always been there and coped with (and resisted) before); plus ii) how important our voices were … The delusion actually worked in our favour because not being jaded meant that we did speak up where lots of others who were just as qualified and able did not … so the things that needed saying by someone were actually said.
(If none of this rings true for you, then I am, of course, just talking about myself 🙂 )
Now I think we are in the position of being the people who can say some things that need saying, but realise that life (and a career) is long, so it does not have to be RIGHT NOW … so maybe we are holding back from writing when we should now be in there doing so …
So, maybe we’ve gone from having nothing really much to say and saying it… to having things to say but not saying it … and #blogjune is a chance to reconsider and maybe get closer to having things to say and realising there is still a point to saying things … but we need to find a way to say so in a way that balances with the rest of our lives??