July 19, 2025 • 41 mins
Procrastination afflicts even the most talented and ambitious writers. That half-finished manuscript, the brilliant idea gathering dust, the writing project continually pushed to tomorrow—we all know the struggle. In this candid exploration, Trevor Thrall dives deep into the psychology behind why writers procrastinate and offers battle-tested strategies to overcome this creativity-killing habit.
Drawing from personal experience and years of coaching writers, Trevor unpacks the surprising emotional roots of procrastination. Fear sits at the heart of many writing delays—fear of failure, fear of criticism, and sometimes even fear of success. For perfectionists, the terror of creating something imperfect can be paralyzing. As Trevor explains, "The most perfect book is the book you never start, because you never have to sully that book's perfection with reality." This insight alone might explain why so many aspiring authors talk about writing for years without typing a single word.
Beyond fear, Trevor examines how overwhelm, imposter syndrome, and lack of accountability contribute to our procrastination habits. He dismantles the common excuse of "poor time management," revealing that what appears as a scheduling issue often masks deeper emotional barriers. The conversation shifts from diagnosis to remedy as Trevor outlines a comprehensive system for establishing a sustainable writing practice. At its core: connecting your writing to a compelling life vision, breaking projects into manageable chunks, establishing consistent routines, and creating meaningful accountability.
Ready to transform your writing life? Trevor offers practical tactics like the "zero draft" approach (lowering quality expectations to get a complete draft quickly) and the "fail early, fail often" strategy of sharing your work throughout the creative process. Whether you're wrestling with a dissertation, struggling with your first novel, or finding it difficult to maintain momentum on your tenth book, this episode provides the framework to stop procrastinating and start producing your best work. Your writing dreams are waiting—isn't it time to stop putting them off?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Trevor Thrall (00:01):
Welcome to the Get your Writing Done Podcast.
I'm Trevor Thrall, the authorof the 12-Week Year for Writers.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please submit a review wherever
you get your podcasts and forweekly updates on the podcast
and everything you need to getyour writing done, you can
subscribe to the newsletter andfind out what's going on at
12weekyearforwriterscom.
(00:22):
That'sloveweekyearforwriterscom.
Is there something sitting inyour sludge pile?
Or maybe on a tinyhalf-forgotten note in your desk
, that list of things that youjust can't seem to do?
Well, if so, you're not alone,and if so, this episode is for
(00:55):
you.
Alright, today's a tough topic,folks.
Today we talk aboutprocrastination.
Why do we all do it?
Why should we not do it?
What can we do about it?
Those are the questions, andyou know I'm coming to you as
someone with a prodigioushistory of procrastination.
And it's funny because you knowthere's no permanent solution
(01:17):
to the problem ofprocrastination.
I think it's just kind of bakedinto our DNA.
We'll talk about that in aminute.
But I have learned over timesome ways to wrassle my
procrastination to the ground,and so I'm looking forward to
sharing some of those thoughtstoday.
So today I just want to talk alittle bit first about the
causes of procrastination,because I think we need to
(01:38):
understand those things beforewe start attacking it and then
share some strategies about howto get things done when you have
, maybe now at this point, ahabit of procrastinating around
your writing.
Right, and talk about what wecan do to kind of break out of
that, okay.
So let's start with why weprocrastinate and I think you
(02:01):
know, sadly, this is a bigproblem, in part because there
are a lot of reasons forprocrastination.
Let me just start with one thatI know is a big one, because,
in fact, just over the last week, I've had conversations with
multiple authors and aspiringauthors who voiced this very
(02:24):
issue, and that is fear.
And that fear comes in itselfmany different flavors.
But, you know, for people whoare starting on their writing
journey, who are aspiring to bea published author, who are
maybe working on their firstbook or something like that,
(02:47):
maybe it's a dissertation,something you've never done
before there is a lot of fear offailure, right?
What if I can't do it?
Or what if I write it and itstinks?
What if I write it and I don'tpass the exam, or I don't get an
agent to pick it up, or I don'tget a public, an agent, to pick
it up, or I don't get itpublished, or it gets published
(03:08):
and no one buys it.
These are scary things, man.
These are just scary things andyou know, understandably they
can slow people way down, right.
Another one is fear of success.
Sometimes we worry about what'sgoing to happen when we publish
(03:31):
something and then peopleexpect us to be this genius
author person.
You know it's funny.
You know, I was so excited toget a PhD and then it turned out
that getting a PhD just meantthat people thought you knew
everything.
And that's kind of terrifyingbecause you don't know anything.
I mean, you just spent a longtime in school.
In fact it almost by definitionmeans you know a lot less than
(03:52):
most people because you kind ofsiloed down on one small part of
the world.
But increased expectations,right.
Especially and the problem isthis can strike people who are
writing their second, third orfourth book right.
You figured out how to do itthe first time, but you can
procrastinate.
What if it's not as good as thefirst one?
What if this time I don't meetthe expectations that people now
(04:15):
have for me?
That can slow you down right,because sitting down to work
means confronting those fears,and I think a close relative to
these kinds of fears isperfectionism, which causes fear
, because perfectionists amongus, you know who you are.
You just aren't comfortableletting people see anything that
(04:37):
isn't your A-plus work and it'ssuper.
Being a perfectionist means youhave a very high bar for what
A-plus work is.
Most people A-plus would be alot lower of a bar, but for you
it's really high.
And the idea that you're goingto let your baby out into the
world right, that can beterrifying for a perfectionist,
(04:59):
and you know it's actually, even, I think, harder for a
perfectionist because you knowwhat the most perfect book is
the book you never even start.
And you know it's actually,even, I think, harder for
perfectionists because you knowwhat the most perfect book is
the book you never even start.
And you know why.
It's because you never have tosully that book's perfection
with reality.
That book, never that greatidea you had for a story, never
(05:20):
has to grapple with the factthat you don't have the right
words to bring it to life.
And so for many people I'm goingto bet $100 that every person
listening to this knows someonewho has talked about writing a
book forever but has donenothing to start writing it, and
one of the reasons for that isthis fear of the perfection.
(05:45):
Right, it's perfect until itbecomes real, and then it's not
perfect, and then that's scary.
So it's really easy to talkabout writing, be enthusiastic
about your writing before you doit, but that fear of what's
going to happen when I startwriting can stop people in their
tracks and it can be on yourto-do list for a long time.
I recently worked with a personwho had been wanting to write a
(06:11):
particular book for over 10years and just could not get
over the hump, and you know Iwas very happy that we were able
to work together and help himto finally get his book done,
and I'll talk a little bit aboutthat in a minute.
But this fear can be a huge,huge damper on things.
(06:36):
Okay, so next sort of big pieceI think that causes
procrastination for us isoverwhelm and lack of kind of
facility with planning andproject chunking.
When you are starting a bigproject and you're listening to
(07:00):
this because you are a writerwith big dreams writers with
small dreams don't listen topodcasts about writing.
So you're a writer with bigdreams, writers with small
dreams.
Don't listen to podcasts aboutwriting.
So you're a writer withambitious plans.
You've, you know, maybe you'vewritten a ton already and you
have plans to write even more,or you are getting started on
your journey and trying tofigure out how to get moving.
One of the reasons it's easy todelay something like a book it's
(07:28):
easy to delay something like abook, a thesis, a script,
whatever it might be that's sortof big is that this is a
complex project, and complexprojects have lots of pieces and
parts and sometimes when yousit down it's hard to keep them
all straight in your mind.
And even when you start writingthem down, the ideas kind of
slip around on the piece ofpaper and it's hard to feel like
you have a hold on it.
And when you get overwhelmed,the natural inclination is to
(07:49):
say, well, I'll come back to it.
I don't have it right now, I'mgonna come back to it, and so
it's really easy, when you feeloverwhelmed, to stop right and I
think, um, you know, whenyou're not clear about what to
do next, you tend not to do itRight.
I guess that's kind of like aone of those sort of iron laws.
There should be a name for thatlaw.
(08:11):
You know Trevor's law when youdon't know what the next step is
, you don't take it.
There you go, and I think Ithink that is a pretty
significant reason for a lot ofprocrastination.
I think interestingly, I don'tthink one of the things that I
(08:33):
think people point to a lot forprocrastination is poor time
management.
Oh, I just, you know, I'm badwith time, I don't make enough
time, and so I just never seemto quite have enough time so I
don't get it done.
I think that is almost always ared herring for the next set of
(08:55):
things that I think causeprocrastination, and those are
other emotional andpsychological factors.
Emotional and psychologicalfactors One of and here and
again, I'm covering a lot ofground here because, as I said,
the reason for procrastinationis many, and I won't hit them
(09:16):
all, but I'm hitting some of theones that I see most often.
All right, another one, andthis is me, this is me all
through school, all the waythrough school, including grad
school, until until I wasworking on my dissertation, my
own project.
One of the key causes forprocrastination for many people
(09:37):
is low motivation, right?
Low motivation, you just don'tcare, right?
It's hard to make yourself dostuff right.
I don't care very much aboutcleaning the house.
Those to-dos last forever.
You know, I've got houseimprovement projects on my
little to-do file that have beenthere for literally years and I
(09:58):
just find reasons not to get tothem.
Why Because they're notimportant?
No, because I don't them.
Why Because they're notimportant?
No, because I don't want to dothem.
They're boring or hard and Idon't like them.
So I don't do them forever.
And here's the funny thing.
You wouldn't think that awriter would procrastinate about
(10:18):
writing because of lowmotivation.
Because aren't you a writer?
Don't you like writing?
Don't you want to write?
Well, yes and no.
Right, yes and no, sure, youwant to write in a general sense
, right, in a general sense Iwant to write, but that doesn't
mean you want to write justanything, right.
And so, like I said, like whenI was in school you assigned me
(10:42):
a paper.
I say I like writing, but Idon't want to write the paper
you just assigned me.
I don't want any of that stuff,right?
I don't want to study, I don'twant to read books, I don't want
to read, I don't want to do anyof that stuff.
And when you think about a lotof our work in life, and I'm
speaking to a lot of you who arewriting for jobs, writing for
your profession, right?
Not every project is exciting.
Sometimes you have to do thingsyou have to write for.
(11:02):
For those things, you know, ifyou're a blogger or a podcaster
or whatever, like not everyonecan be your favorite episode or
your favorite blog or yourfavorite topic, and when your
motivation slows or is low forthose things, you're going to
find reasons to put it off right.
So one of the reasons I thinkit's so important to connect
(11:22):
your vision with your writingprojects is this very reason.
Because here's the other thing Ifound like a lot of people will
say, oh, I want to write a book.
And then you check in next yearand they haven't even.
But they laugh when you say,have you started writing that
book you mentioned last newyear's, they go no, no, no, no.
And then you ask them fiveyears later hey, you always talk
(11:42):
about writing a book.
Are you writing a book?
No, I'm not writing a book.
And why is that?
They say they talk like theywant to write.
Right, and here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
There's a difference betweenwhat we say and what we feel
Right.
Part of our brain says I wantto write a book.
(12:03):
But what people I think mostlymean when they say that is, I
want to have written a book?
They don't want to do the work.
The work is hard, the work willtake a long time, the work will
cause sweat and blood and tears.
They don't want to do that,they want the outcome, they
don't want the process.
And so, for many of us, if youfind yourself saying I want this
(12:28):
, I want this, but you findyourself not doing it over and
over and over again, you have tosit down and have a real
conversation with yourself.
Do you really want to do this,like enough that you're willing
to pay the cost, the cost ofthat commitment?
Are you willing to commit tothat?
Because it turns out that thereare many people who simply are
not at that point anymore.
(12:49):
Right, and I'll give you aninteresting example.
About five years ago now, I wasrunning a writing group and the
woman joined who had written anovel 20 years before and she
joined the group thinking youknow what I got to get my mojo
back.
I haven't written anythingsince then and everyone's always
asking me when are you going towrite another book, you know.
(13:10):
And she's like I just don'twant to be a one-trick pony, I
want to write another book.
And she joined the writinggroup and we met every week and
week after week after week afterweek.
She would say she was going todo certain things and she never
did them.
Never did them and I won't gointo gory details.
But a wonderful thing happenedabout six months into this.
(13:34):
She showed up to the group andsaid I had an epiphany.
I realized that the reason I'mnot writing, I realized that the
reason I'm not writing is Idon't want to write.
She said it was really hard forme to admit this, but I want to
do other things with my timeright now.
(13:54):
I want to spend time with mygrandkids, I want to spend time
doing this, that and the otherthing.
I realized I thought I wantedthat, but that's not what I want
.
Other people kind of wanted ita lot and I thought I wanted
that, but that's not what I want.
Other people kind of wanted ita lot and I thought I wanted it,
but I didn't.
Inside, deep inside, I don'twant to write.
And I was so happy for herbecause she had been trapped in
(14:16):
a psychic prison.
And so I think it's reallyinteresting because she is not
the only person who has spent alot of time and effort trying to
get herself to do somethingthat she actually did not want
to do.
And if you are a person who hasthat relationship with a
particular writing project, ormaybe just writing in general,
(14:39):
maybe it's time to ask yourselfdo I have prep or
procrastination problem becauseI don't, at root, I don't want
to do this writing?
That's a really importantquestion to have with yourself,
right?
So you know it could be to thatproject or it could be, you
know, to the whole project ofwriting.
And the sooner you can findthat truth out, have that true
(15:00):
conversation with yourself andto get to the bottom of it, the
better, right?
Because then you can find thattruth out, have that true
conversation with yourself andto get to the bottom of it, the
better, right, because then youcan get on doing what you were
actually being called to do bythe world, right?
And I think the thing that'stricky about it is that the
world, you know, applaudsdifferent kinds of behaviors,
and so we think we say we wantthose things, we want those
(15:21):
outcomes.
But it's funny.
My wife and I have developed aphrase around this which is I
wish I wanted that.
I can't want that.
I wish I wanted to do that.
I wish I was the kind of personwho wanted to do the work to do
that.
But I'm not.
So I can't.
It will kill me to do thatbecause I'm just not made like
that.
I can't want it enough, andthat's perfectly fair.
(15:43):
And the whole art of life, itseems to me, is figuring out
what you do want to do and avoidthe things you don't want to do
.
All right, so that's one of thebig ones.
Another one that's kind ofrelated to the fear thing is
imposter syndrome and I'vetalked about this before.
You know one of the.
I had two early students when Iwas first teaching in a
(16:09):
graduate program.
Two early master's students,you know were, came through the
program and both hit the thesiswriting phase at about the same
time and they were both superstudents.
They are both doing wonderfulthings today in their careers,
to no surprise.
But both of them struggledmightily with writing their
(16:32):
thesis and at first they ofcourse didn't tell me they were
having any problems, and it wasonly after months of no
communication.
I was like, guys, guys, what'sgoing on?
And it turned out that both ofthem independently, they weren't
working together, but both ofthem were suffering from a
terrible bout of impostersyndrome.
(16:54):
Neither of them had anyone intheir families who'd been to
grad school.
And they were just like, am Ithe kind of person who can
really do this, like I'mpretending to do this, like I
feel like I'm just this is allgarbage because I'm just not
this person.
Whatever, it got so bad forboth of them.
This is not a good thing aboutgraduate school, right?
But and I swear to God, I wasnot trying to pressure anyone
(17:15):
here but one of them lost hervoice because she got so
stressed out about it, and theother guy, he couldn't go in the
basement for months becausethat's where his computer office
was, so he just wouldn't go tothe basement, oh man.
And so we had to work throughand I had to reassure and talk
them through this, you know,reassure and talk them through
(17:39):
this.
And you know, because they hadjust built up a whole bunch of
of like self doubt through thisimposter syndrome and they need
to overcome that to be able toovercome the procrastination,
right, and the funny thing isthat they were feeling bad about
procrastinating, but thatwasn't really the issue.
Procrastination is kind of thisbig catch all term I'm not doing
stuff, but the real problem wasnot procrastinating, it was
(18:00):
imposter syndrome, right.
And then I'll say one morething that I think is a big one,
and that is and this is atricky one to throw in onto this
pile, but I think it's becauseit's more at a tactical level.
(18:23):
Some of these other things I'vejust been talking about are
more at the strategic level, butat a tactical level and I said
before, sort of at the tacticallevel I don't think people's
complaints about time managementare a real argument, because I
think when people find timedifficult, it's because they
have a big reason why they'respending their time somewhere
(18:43):
else.
That having been said, what Iwill say is and probably to some
extent this is true for the thenext topic as well but
accountability.
When you commit to doing a tasklike write a book, you are in
(19:09):
order to keep yourself going,moving forward.
You need to have some processfor holding yourself accountable
for continuing to move forward.
You know, otherwise nothingwill happen and you won't get
anywhere and you'll justprocrastinate right.
You won't do the thing that'snext on the list of things to do
(19:30):
, and so you have to have asystem of kind of keeping
yourself accountable.
There are lots of ways to holdyourself accountable.
The question isn't which one isthe right one.
The question is what's rightfor you?
There's literature about whatthe strongest forms of
accountability are, or that'sthat nailing?
Is it internal commitment?
Are you one of those people whoneeds other people to be
(19:52):
accountable to, or else youwon't do it?
That's a whole conversation wecan have in and of itself, but I
do believe 100% that you canhave a strong desire to do
something, you can have a goodplan, you can have, you know,
high motivation, all that stuff,but if you don't have a habit
(20:13):
of and a system for holdingyourself accountable, it's going
to be very difficult for younot to find yourself doing other
things when you shouldn't bewriting.
Because writing is such a quietsport right, it's the quietest
activity on the planet.
It never complains, it nevergets in your face, it allows
everyone else to take precedence, and so if you're not holding
(20:33):
yourself accountable to doingthat work, it's very easy to
lose track and not do it, and,you know, maybe not always
because you're trying to avoidstuff.
That's hard.
You know you've got other hardthings that need doing too, but
they're always going to belouder than writing, and so if
you don't have a system forkeeping yourself accountable to
the writing specifically, it'sgoing to be hard to get the
(20:54):
writing done.
Okay, so those are just, I think, some of the the you know, main
reasons that I see on a regularbasis for why people just
aren't getting things done.
Right Stays on the sludge pile,I'm afraid of it, it's too hard
, I'm not willing to do it.
Um, I, I, you know, uh, yeah,all those things.
(21:19):
So now, what is the?
What's the problem with that?
Like, who cares?
Right, no one asks you to writethe book.
So what does it really matter,right?
Well, I think there areactually quite a few costs to
procrastinating, right,obviously like the most tactical
level.
When you procrastinate, youdon't get stuff done, you lose
momentum, you are lessproductive, and if those things
(21:42):
matter for your job, that couldbe bad.
If you're doing it for apassion project, though, right,
it means a delay of your passion, right, if your dream is to
publish a book.
I know I have spoken to many,many people over the last year,
two years whose dream is topublish something.
If you do not keep moving, thatdream just keeps being denied,
(22:06):
and that's no fun for anyone.
But you know what One of theworst things about
procrastination is, and I knowthis from personal experience as
a kid who had a very difficulttime making himself do homework
or term papers.
Even worse back in the day,procrastination is a humongous
generator of stress and anxiety.
(22:26):
It's terrible, it's just awful.
It eats at you.
It eats at you all the time.
That's the worst thing about itis one project that you're
procrastinating on can ruinseven days of the week, right?
If you're not getting thingsdone on a regular basis, they
can eat at you and that feelsvery bad and we don't like that.
The world is crazy enough as itis.
Don't add more stress andanxiety by adding writing to the
(22:51):
list of things that arestressing out.
Use writing as the escape man,but if your writing turns from
an escape into an anxietyproducer, guess what's going to
happen?
You're not going to write,right, it's going to be a loop.
That's the worst thing.
If you procrastinate, then youstress about it, then you avoid
it because it's stressful, thenyou never do it.
And that would be me with mymath homework in eighth grade.
Like I stopped doing it for awhile.
It got more stressful.
(23:11):
I started doing worse.
I got even more stressful.
I avoided it harder.
It took me a couple years todig out of that problem, but
anyway, right, so that's bad.
Then let's talk about what itdoes to the quality of your work
.
Right, when you work in fitsand spurts.
Right, because youprocrastinated for a long time.
(23:32):
Oh, then you have to pull anall-nighter, and I know a bunch
of you think you're cool becauseyou did an all-nighter once or
twice in college and you got anA anyway, or at least you got a
B or something like that.
And yeah, that's cute whenyou're in college, but it
doesn't work.
When you're writing a novelDoesn't write.
When you're trying to write aNew York Times bestseller, you
got to bring your A game.
You bring your A game all thetime, and and working in fits
(23:53):
and spurts is not conducive todoing your best work at all, at
all.
Right, and then let's talk aboutthe spillover effects when you
procrastinate on your writing.
And this is especially true, ofcourse, if it's something
you're doing for money or forprofessional purposes, right.
But if you get out of whack andfall behind on that right, it's
(24:16):
going to have an impact onother projects that you're
working on, on your work-lifebalance.
You're going to end up havingto do crazy things that ruin
weekends or other stuff likethat right.
And the worst you knowpotential cost of
procrastination is you just loseout on the opportunities and
you miss the goals.
And you, you know, the careerthat you want, the life that you
(24:37):
want, the life that you want,the things that writing can help
build for you, are things youdon't get right.
So the cost of procrastinatingis sadly quite high, right?
So, okay, that's scary.
Enough of that talk, let's.
How do we not procrastinate,though?
How do we not procrastinate?
Well, well, thankfully, thereare probably as many potential
(25:00):
strategies for notprocrastinating as there are
reasons that peopleprocrastinate in the first place
, and so the reason I wanted towalk through, kind of, you know,
the diagnosis phase first iswhich of these strategies is
going to be most useful to youwill depend on what your issue
is right.
If it's fear, it's going to beone thing.
If it's imposter syndrome, itmight be another.
(25:21):
If it's being overwhelmed, itwill be another.
If it's accountability.
It will be another right.
But it won't be any realsurprise to you to hear me say
that embracing a system ofwriting for creating a healthy
writing routine is probably oneof the best antidotes to
(25:42):
procrastination that you canhave.
And it starts from thebeginning.
So let me just walk you throughthe system and remind you why
it helps against procrastination.
The first step is to craft acompelling vision, to anchor
your writing in a compellingvision of your life, like where
are you trying to go?
(26:03):
How is writing getting youthere?
And making sure that whatyou're writing is tied directly
to that path, so that you knowevery time you sit down right,
you're moving, bit by bit,closer to the life that you want
.
That's, that's the kind ofmotivation you want, right,
right.
When I finally got through mycomprehensive exams in graduate
school, I was finally donewriting papers for other people
(26:26):
on topics that they chose, whichI never liked doing and I
finally got to write my own bookfor the first time.
I had a blast doing that.
It was terrifying, I didn'tknow what I was doing, but I had
a blast doing it.
Finally, this was what I washere for Building my own career
right, putting my mark on thefield, putting my ideas out in
(26:50):
the world.
That's what I was here for andthat kept me going, man, as hard
as it was and as bad as I wasat it.
Man, it would have stoppedsomeone with less motivation
than I had I'll tell you what.
But I was very enthusiastic andI want you to feel that way
about your writing every day.
Every day you sit down, youshould be thrilled because it's
putting you closer to where youreally want to be.
So that's one thing.
(27:13):
Start with the vision.
The second thing is planning.
If you are feeling overwhelmed,if you are procrastinating
because you don't know what todo next, you need to sit down
and plan that thing out.
Chunk that, sucker up.
Read the workbook on projectchunking and figure out how to
create tactics using a 12-weekplan to lay out the next steps
(27:37):
in an organized fashion.
Right?
If you need help, we can helpwith that, right?
Coaches, mentors, other writershelp get feedback on that stuff
.
Right?
Easy money.
Mastering the use of time right,I talked about how time should
probably not be a problem, ifyou know, because that's not
(27:57):
usually the real reason, right?
But it is also true that, inorder to get as much done as we
want.
We need to be careful in ouruse of time.
So having a clear model, weekand time blocking and time
boxing efficiently so that weare making the most of our days,
very useful for moving forwardmore quickly.
Then a huge one is the fourthpiece of the system, which is
(28:22):
the weekly writing routine.
Right, and here I think this isreally where the rubber hits
the road for folks right, if youmake your writing a routine, by
definition what a routine doesis it makes something easier and
more enjoyable and morerewarding.
(28:42):
Right, that's a healthy routine.
And so your goal with the12-week gear for writer system,
right, or any other system thatyou might be using, is to figure
out how to make your writing,is to be strategic and think
forward.
How can I make my week ofwriting, how can I structure my
life, my week, my writing, sothat my writing is easier, more
(29:02):
enjoyable and more rewarding?
And when you do those things,it's inevitable that you're
going to do it.
You can listen to otherpodcasts about the weekly
writing routine and stuff tohear more about that process,
but doing a weekly review sothat you make sure you know what
you're about and you got thelist of things to do next, so
you're not wondering what thatis.
(29:22):
Every week, scheduling yourwriting sessions so that you're
using time well and you'recommitting yourself to and
holding yourself accountable togo do the writing.
Having a plan sorry, having aplan at each session, so you
know what you're doing.
Meeting with a weekly writinggroup right?
This is one of the biggest,most easiest hacks you can do to
(29:47):
prevent procrastination.
Most people, right?
It doesn't matter whetheryou're an internal motivation
person or an external motivationperson.
You will get a huge benefitfrom a weekly writing group
either way.
If you're an internalmotivation person, you will get
a huge benefit from a weeklywriting group Either way.
If you're an internalmotivation person, now you don't
necessarily need a writinggroup to help keep you
accountable, but what you willget there is motivation, support
(30:09):
, collaboration, feedback allsorts of things that help make
you write as best as you can butalso give you the encouragement
and enthusiasm to amplify yourinternal accountability.
If you're one of those peoplewho really can use external
accountability, a writing groupis perfect, because knowing that
you're going to have to fess upwhat you did and didn't do last
(30:31):
week compared to what you saidto your writing group, it keeps
a lot of people on track.
So a weekly writing group, man,that is a huge, huge killer of
procrastination.
I do not know.
I have had the benefit over,you know, several decades now,
of always having differentwriting groups in play, and I
used, you know, when I was anacademic, I had basically a
(30:54):
writing group for each article Iwould be working on.
So I would have sometimes asmany as three writing groups a
week for different projects, andwithout those meeting weekly,
those things never would havegotten done.
Period, period end, and notjust because, you know, no one
was lazy, but it's very easy ina busy life to procrastinate.
Very easy, right, becausethere's a lot to do and things
(31:17):
are hard and you're like, well,you know what, I'd rather do the
easier thing than the hardthing.
So, okay, so it gets pushed offanother week, but if you know
you're having a meeting, yeah,don't push it off, right.
So a weekly writing group, hugefor overcoming procrastination.
What else can we talk about here?
The fear stuff, right?
(31:37):
So this is an interesting one,because I think, if you are
finding that fear is blockingyou from moving forward, I think
there are probably at leastthree things that you could do.
The first thing is that youmight talk to a mental health
(32:03):
professional, right?
Therapy is a fantastic way tograpple with emotional fears of
all kinds, and it wouldabsolutely be a great idea if
you feel like your fear offailure or criticism or whatever
it might be, is really holdingyou back from sitting down and
(32:28):
working or from finishingsomething.
I know a lot of people who I'vetold this story before, but I
know more than one professor whogot so upset about criticism
and negative reviews that theywrite things and then they just
put them in their desk now andthey don't bother trying to
publish anymore because they'rejust so upset by that.
Well, that sounds to me likesomething a professional should
(32:48):
probably help with, right and Idon't say that like I go to
therapy, like you know.
This is a good thing to do, sothat's one right.
If your fear is sort of more ofthe garden variety, the kind
we're all dealing with, and youknow something you feel like,
you can work on two otheroptions.
One is get a writing group, andwhat's that writing group going
(33:09):
to do?
That writing group is going tohave all the same fears you do,
and one of the best ways toovercome fear of failure, fear
of rejection, fear of all ofthose things, and imposter
syndrome to boot, is to talkabout it out loud, because this
stuff dies and becomes much moreright-sized when you talk about
it out loud.
Because this stuff dies andbecomes much more right-sized
when you talk about it out loudand you realize everyone's
afraid of the same stuff andthere's really no alternative to
(33:31):
go forward and we can all laughabout being afraid of it, right
?
I have tons of examples in mylife like this where once you
finally talk about it, yourealize okay, I'm going to be
scared of it, but I can handleit.
And then a third option that Ifind very, very important and I
say this as someone who has beenan advisor and a mentor and a
coach for a very long time isit's very natural again I'll
(33:54):
just say it it's very natural tobe afraid of things, especially
when you're trying a big, hairynew thing.
It's totally normal and it'salso something that a coach or a
professor, an advisor, a mentorcan help with immensely.
You know they can walk youthrough the kinds of things that
you can do to kind of grapplewith those fears.
(34:16):
They can tell you stories thatwill help put things in
perspective right, depending onwhat your particular situation
is, and they can tell you theirown goofy stories about when
they had a problem and this andthat, and, believe me, we've all
got them right.
And so having a coach help youthrough that, like, coach you
through, walk you through itright, that can be, that can be
another great way to do it.
(34:37):
So I I really recommend any andall of those sort of different
options.
I'll say sort of one other onemore of a sort of an
instrumental strategy that Ifind really, really very useful,
and that is something that Ilearned about a long time ago
(35:02):
when my wife was writing herdissertation, she read a book
that introduced me to the ideaof the zero draft and the zero
draft.
The specifics actually don'tmatter very much, but the zero
draft is, as the name suggests,a, a first draft.
That's even less than a firstdraft, but basically you lower
(35:22):
the bar of quality to zero.
You don't edit all gas, nobrakes.
You basically write an entireversion of the book quickly on
an intentionally compressedtimeline in order to just get
the whole waterfront out there,more like a treatment of the
book.
This isn't got all the contentin it, but it's all the content
I can put in it, plus all thesignposts for what it's going to
(35:44):
be.
This section I don't have but'sgonna be this and that and
maybe just got a bunch of bulletpoints and some ideas and some
free writing and all that sortof stuff.
Uh, if you're afraid offinishing something, writing a
zero draft first kind of crushesthe fear because all of a
sudden you have a finished likeyou have a complete draft now.
Is it a little fraudulent?
Yeah, sort of, but it's alsocomplete.
(36:05):
And at that point all sorts ofamazing things happen.
Number one you have the wholething and now you just have to
finish it.
It's just polishing at thatpoint it's not making it.
The making part was scary, butyou just got to the end there
real quick and now all it is isfinishing A lot easier mentally.
The other thing you do is youactually give yourself a chance
(36:25):
to make it even better, becauseit's easier to move things
around when you can see all thepieces and all the waterfront
rather than trying to figure out.
I'm in chapter three.
What do I need to do to makesure it's?
You don't know yet.
So having the whole thing isgreat, so so zero draft is kind
of a mentality, not just aspecific thing, because you can
zero draft a chapter, you canzero draft a section, you can
(36:48):
zero draft the whole book, youcan zero draft.
But here's the other thingDon't think of your book as the
last chance to write the book,right?
You know, one of the things Iwas just joking with somebody
yesterday about is that old sawthat you know, books are never
finished, we just abandon them.
And you know, I can tell you.
I can look at any book I'veever written and say, yep, I can
(37:09):
tell you the 23 things I stillwish I did with that book, or I
need another chapter or whatever.
But yeah, you run out of time,you gotta publish these dang
things.
Um so, so.
But but think expressly aboutbooks being iterations, right?
You?
So I'm in lots of like.
If it's nonfiction, for example, it can be a first edition.
(37:29):
You can write another one,right?
And for people who are writinglike business books or academic
works and stuff like that, youwould never publish the very
first version of something youwrote anyway.
Right?
If you're an academic, you'regoing to take it to conference
or two or three or five, and getlots of feedback before you
publish it.
So you don't have to worryabout the first draft.
Don't worry.
(37:49):
Find ways to take the worrydown and the cost of failure
down.
So take it down by making thezero draft mentality kind of
your strategy.
I'm going to find low-cost waysto deliver finished product and
get feedback Right.
(38:13):
Another and related tactic fordealing with fear in particular,
and imposter syndrome I thinkas well, is a somewhat
counterintuitive phrase, whichis fail early and fail often.
I know I've talked about thisbefore, but for me, you know the
(38:34):
imagine two scenarios.
One is you write a one sentencedescription of the book you
want to write and you share itwith someone.
How scared does that feel?
Not very scary?
Let's say you write 300 pagesand you share it with someone
for their feedback.
How scary is that?
Okay, that's very scary, right?
(38:55):
So so by fail early and failoften, what we want to do with
all kinds of writing, I don'tcare what kind is is you want to
share it as early as possibleand as often as possible.
The fail early part is a joke.
It doesn't necessarily meanthere's any failure, but you're
going to find out often, right,how's it feeling, how's it
(39:16):
looking, how's it looking?
So if you are writing somethingthat's for professional purposes
, keep giving it to peers whocan tell you hey, is this
meeting the bar?
Is this meeting the bar, isthis good, is this good Right?
Or a mentor, or if you'rewriting fiction, it's a writing
group who can give you feedbackHow's that character, how's this
character, how's the plot,how's this Right?
And the earlier you share right, the earlier you can be
confident to add another blockRight.
(39:37):
If you share the idea for thebook and people go, oh, that'd
be kind of cool.
And then you expand it a littlebit more and here's a little
treatment, oh, yeah, well, Ireally like what you're doing
with that.
Oh, now you have the confidenceto outline the whole thing, and
now you have confidence towrite right.
And each time you get a littlemore feedback, a little more
feedback, so that by the timeyou publish something, you're
not revealing it for the firsttime to the world.
You don't have to be scared.
(39:58):
You're actually going to bebrimming with confidence because
you've gotten tons of positivefeedback the whole way.
And I think you know, I thinkmaybe younger people, maybe some
of you have a more of a writingin public kind of a mindset
because of social media andstuff like that.
But but my sense is fromtalking to people that writers
for some reason still are kindof the other way around.
(40:20):
They tend towards that lonewolf.
They tend towards that I'mgoing to hide my creativity
under a blanket until it's timeto reveal it to the world.
And you know that's you knowromantic and, I guess, cool and
all.
But frankly it's terrible foryour mental health and it's not
good for the quality of yourwork either, because you don't
give other people a chance tohelp you make it great.
So I really recommend sort ofthat zero draft and fail early,
(40:44):
fail often, mentality All right.
I don't want to go too long.
I'm sure there's more we couldsay about procrastinating, but
I've got other things I need todo and I don't want to
procrastinate and get into them.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode, hope you got something
out of it.
Hit me up at Trevor at12weekyearforwriterscom if you
have thoughts or comments orwant to share your
(41:07):
procrastination journey.
And until next time, happywriting.
Welcome to the Get your Writing Done Podcast.
I'm Trevor Thrall, the authorof the 12-Week Year for Writers.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please submit a review wherever
you get your podcasts and forweekly updates on the podcast
and everything you need to getyour writing done, you can
subscribe to the newsletter andfind out what's going on at
12weekyearforwriterscom.
(00:22):
That'sloveweekyearforwriterscom.
Is there something sitting inyour sludge pile?
Or maybe on a tinyhalf-forgotten note in your desk
, that list of things that youjust can't seem to do?
Well, if so, you're not alone,and if so, this episode is for
(00:55):
you.
Alright, today's a tough topic,folks.
Today we talk aboutprocrastination.
Why do we all do it?
Why should we not do it?
What can we do about it?
Those are the questions, andyou know I'm coming to you as
someone with a prodigioushistory of procrastination.
And it's funny because you knowthere's no permanent solution
(01:17):
to the problem ofprocrastination.
I think it's just kind of bakedinto our DNA.
We'll talk about that in aminute.
But I have learned over timesome ways to wrassle my
procrastination to the ground,and so I'm looking forward to
sharing some of those thoughtstoday.
So today I just want to talk alittle bit first about the
causes of procrastination,because I think we need to
(01:38):
understand those things beforewe start attacking it and then
share some strategies about howto get things done when you have
, maybe now at this point, ahabit of procrastinating around
your writing.
Right, and talk about what wecan do to kind of break out of
that, okay.
So let's start with why weprocrastinate and I think you
(02:01):
know, sadly, this is a bigproblem, in part because there
are a lot of reasons forprocrastination.
Let me just start with one thatI know is a big one, because,
in fact, just over the last week, I've had conversations with
multiple authors and aspiringauthors who voiced this very
(02:24):
issue, and that is fear.
And that fear comes in itselfmany different flavors.
But, you know, for people whoare starting on their writing
journey, who are aspiring to bea published author, who are
maybe working on their firstbook or something like that,
(02:47):
maybe it's a dissertation,something you've never done
before there is a lot of fear offailure, right?
What if I can't do it?
Or what if I write it and itstinks?
What if I write it and I don'tpass the exam, or I don't get an
agent to pick it up, or I don'tget a public, an agent, to pick
it up, or I don't get itpublished, or it gets published
(03:08):
and no one buys it.
These are scary things, man.
These are just scary things andyou know, understandably they
can slow people way down, right.
Another one is fear of success.
Sometimes we worry about what'sgoing to happen when we publish
(03:31):
something and then peopleexpect us to be this genius
author person.
You know it's funny.
You know, I was so excited toget a PhD and then it turned out
that getting a PhD just meantthat people thought you knew
everything.
And that's kind of terrifyingbecause you don't know anything.
I mean, you just spent a longtime in school.
In fact it almost by definitionmeans you know a lot less than
(03:52):
most people because you kind ofsiloed down on one small part of
the world.
But increased expectations,right.
Especially and the problem isthis can strike people who are
writing their second, third orfourth book right.
You figured out how to do itthe first time, but you can
procrastinate.
What if it's not as good as thefirst one?
What if this time I don't meetthe expectations that people now
(04:15):
have for me?
That can slow you down right,because sitting down to work
means confronting those fears,and I think a close relative to
these kinds of fears isperfectionism, which causes fear
, because perfectionists amongus, you know who you are.
You just aren't comfortableletting people see anything that
(04:37):
isn't your A-plus work and it'ssuper.
Being a perfectionist means youhave a very high bar for what
A-plus work is.
Most people A-plus would be alot lower of a bar, but for you
it's really high.
And the idea that you're goingto let your baby out into the
world right, that can beterrifying for a perfectionist,
(04:59):
and you know it's actually, even, I think, harder for a
perfectionist because you knowwhat the most perfect book is
the book you never even start.
And you know it's actually,even, I think, harder for
perfectionists because you knowwhat the most perfect book is
the book you never even start.
And you know why.
It's because you never have tosully that book's perfection
with reality.
That book, never that greatidea you had for a story, never
(05:20):
has to grapple with the factthat you don't have the right
words to bring it to life.
And so for many people I'm goingto bet $100 that every person
listening to this knows someonewho has talked about writing a
book forever but has donenothing to start writing it, and
one of the reasons for that isthis fear of the perfection.
(05:45):
Right, it's perfect until itbecomes real, and then it's not
perfect, and then that's scary.
So it's really easy to talkabout writing, be enthusiastic
about your writing before you doit, but that fear of what's
going to happen when I startwriting can stop people in their
tracks and it can be on yourto-do list for a long time.
I recently worked with a personwho had been wanting to write a
(06:11):
particular book for over 10years and just could not get
over the hump, and you know Iwas very happy that we were able
to work together and help himto finally get his book done,
and I'll talk a little bit aboutthat in a minute.
But this fear can be a huge,huge damper on things.
(06:36):
Okay, so next sort of big pieceI think that causes
procrastination for us isoverwhelm and lack of kind of
facility with planning andproject chunking.
When you are starting a bigproject and you're listening to
(07:00):
this because you are a writerwith big dreams writers with
small dreams don't listen topodcasts about writing.
So you're a writer with bigdreams, writers with small
dreams.
Don't listen to podcasts aboutwriting.
So you're a writer withambitious plans.
You've, you know, maybe you'vewritten a ton already and you
have plans to write even more,or you are getting started on
your journey and trying tofigure out how to get moving.
One of the reasons it's easy todelay something like a book it's
(07:28):
easy to delay something like abook, a thesis, a script,
whatever it might be that's sortof big is that this is a
complex project, and complexprojects have lots of pieces and
parts and sometimes when yousit down it's hard to keep them
all straight in your mind.
And even when you start writingthem down, the ideas kind of
slip around on the piece ofpaper and it's hard to feel like
you have a hold on it.
And when you get overwhelmed,the natural inclination is to
(07:49):
say, well, I'll come back to it.
I don't have it right now, I'mgonna come back to it, and so
it's really easy, when you feeloverwhelmed, to stop right and I
think, um, you know, whenyou're not clear about what to
do next, you tend not to do itRight.
I guess that's kind of like aone of those sort of iron laws.
There should be a name for thatlaw.
(08:11):
You know Trevor's law when youdon't know what the next step is
, you don't take it.
There you go, and I think Ithink that is a pretty
significant reason for a lot ofprocrastination.
I think interestingly, I don'tthink one of the things that I
(08:33):
think people point to a lot forprocrastination is poor time
management.
Oh, I just, you know, I'm badwith time, I don't make enough
time, and so I just never seemto quite have enough time so I
don't get it done.
I think that is almost always ared herring for the next set of
(08:55):
things that I think causeprocrastination, and those are
other emotional andpsychological factors.
Emotional and psychologicalfactors One of and here and
again, I'm covering a lot ofground here because, as I said,
the reason for procrastinationis many, and I won't hit them
(09:16):
all, but I'm hitting some of theones that I see most often.
All right, another one, andthis is me, this is me all
through school, all the waythrough school, including grad
school, until until I wasworking on my dissertation, my
own project.
One of the key causes forprocrastination for many people
(09:37):
is low motivation, right?
Low motivation, you just don'tcare, right?
It's hard to make yourself dostuff right.
I don't care very much aboutcleaning the house.
Those to-dos last forever.
You know, I've got houseimprovement projects on my
little to-do file that have beenthere for literally years and I
(09:58):
just find reasons not to get tothem.
Why Because they're notimportant?
No, because I don't them.
Why Because they're notimportant?
No, because I don't want to dothem.
They're boring or hard and Idon't like them.
So I don't do them forever.
And here's the funny thing.
You wouldn't think that awriter would procrastinate about
(10:18):
writing because of lowmotivation.
Because aren't you a writer?
Don't you like writing?
Don't you want to write?
Well, yes and no.
Right, yes and no, sure, youwant to write in a general sense
, right, in a general sense Iwant to write, but that doesn't
mean you want to write justanything, right.
And so, like I said, like whenI was in school you assigned me
(10:42):
a paper.
I say I like writing, but Idon't want to write the paper
you just assigned me.
I don't want any of that stuff,right?
I don't want to study, I don'twant to read books, I don't want
to read, I don't want to do anyof that stuff.
And when you think about a lotof our work in life, and I'm
speaking to a lot of you who arewriting for jobs, writing for
your profession, right?
Not every project is exciting.
Sometimes you have to do thingsyou have to write for.
(11:02):
For those things, you know, ifyou're a blogger or a podcaster
or whatever, like not everyonecan be your favorite episode or
your favorite blog or yourfavorite topic, and when your
motivation slows or is low forthose things, you're going to
find reasons to put it off right.
So one of the reasons I thinkit's so important to connect
(11:22):
your vision with your writingprojects is this very reason.
Because here's the other thing Ifound like a lot of people will
say, oh, I want to write a book.
And then you check in next yearand they haven't even.
But they laugh when you say,have you started writing that
book you mentioned last newyear's, they go no, no, no, no.
And then you ask them fiveyears later hey, you always talk
(11:42):
about writing a book.
Are you writing a book?
No, I'm not writing a book.
And why is that?
They say they talk like theywant to write.
Right, and here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
There's a difference betweenwhat we say and what we feel
Right.
Part of our brain says I wantto write a book.
(12:03):
But what people I think mostlymean when they say that is, I
want to have written a book?
They don't want to do the work.
The work is hard, the work willtake a long time, the work will
cause sweat and blood and tears.
They don't want to do that,they want the outcome, they
don't want the process.
And so, for many of us, if youfind yourself saying I want this
(12:28):
, I want this, but you findyourself not doing it over and
over and over again, you have tosit down and have a real
conversation with yourself.
Do you really want to do this,like enough that you're willing
to pay the cost, the cost ofthat commitment?
Are you willing to commit tothat?
Because it turns out that thereare many people who simply are
not at that point anymore.
(12:49):
Right, and I'll give you aninteresting example.
About five years ago now, I wasrunning a writing group and the
woman joined who had written anovel 20 years before and she
joined the group thinking youknow what I got to get my mojo
back.
I haven't written anythingsince then and everyone's always
asking me when are you going towrite another book, you know.
(13:10):
And she's like I just don'twant to be a one-trick pony, I
want to write another book.
And she joined the writinggroup and we met every week and
week after week after week afterweek.
She would say she was going todo certain things and she never
did them.
Never did them and I won't gointo gory details.
But a wonderful thing happenedabout six months into this.
(13:34):
She showed up to the group andsaid I had an epiphany.
I realized that the reason I'mnot writing, I realized that the
reason I'm not writing is Idon't want to write.
She said it was really hard forme to admit this, but I want to
do other things with my timeright now.
(13:54):
I want to spend time with mygrandkids, I want to spend time
doing this, that and the otherthing.
I realized I thought I wantedthat, but that's not what I want
.
Other people kind of wanted ita lot and I thought I wanted
that, but that's not what I want.
Other people kind of wanted ita lot and I thought I wanted it,
but I didn't.
Inside, deep inside, I don'twant to write.
And I was so happy for herbecause she had been trapped in
(14:16):
a psychic prison.
And so I think it's reallyinteresting because she is not
the only person who has spent alot of time and effort trying to
get herself to do somethingthat she actually did not want
to do.
And if you are a person who hasthat relationship with a
particular writing project, ormaybe just writing in general,
(14:39):
maybe it's time to ask yourselfdo I have prep or
procrastination problem becauseI don't, at root, I don't want
to do this writing?
That's a really importantquestion to have with yourself,
right?
So you know it could be to thatproject or it could be, you
know, to the whole project ofwriting.
And the sooner you can findthat truth out, have that true
(15:00):
conversation with yourself andto get to the bottom of it, the
better, right?
Because then you can find thattruth out, have that true
conversation with yourself andto get to the bottom of it, the
better, right, because then youcan get on doing what you were
actually being called to do bythe world, right?
And I think the thing that'stricky about it is that the
world, you know, applaudsdifferent kinds of behaviors,
and so we think we say we wantthose things, we want those
(15:21):
outcomes.
But it's funny.
My wife and I have developed aphrase around this which is I
wish I wanted that.
I can't want that.
I wish I wanted to do that.
I wish I was the kind of personwho wanted to do the work to do
that.
But I'm not.
So I can't.
It will kill me to do thatbecause I'm just not made like
that.
I can't want it enough, andthat's perfectly fair.
(15:43):
And the whole art of life, itseems to me, is figuring out
what you do want to do and avoidthe things you don't want to do
.
All right, so that's one of thebig ones.
Another one that's kind ofrelated to the fear thing is
imposter syndrome and I'vetalked about this before.
You know one of the.
I had two early students when Iwas first teaching in a
(16:09):
graduate program.
Two early master's students,you know were, came through the
program and both hit the thesiswriting phase at about the same
time and they were both superstudents.
They are both doing wonderfulthings today in their careers,
to no surprise.
But both of them struggledmightily with writing their
(16:32):
thesis and at first they ofcourse didn't tell me they were
having any problems, and it wasonly after months of no
communication.
I was like, guys, guys, what'sgoing on?
And it turned out that both ofthem independently, they weren't
working together, but both ofthem were suffering from a
terrible bout of impostersyndrome.
(16:54):
Neither of them had anyone intheir families who'd been to
grad school.
And they were just like, am Ithe kind of person who can
really do this, like I'mpretending to do this, like I
feel like I'm just this is allgarbage because I'm just not
this person.
Whatever, it got so bad forboth of them.
This is not a good thing aboutgraduate school, right?
But and I swear to God, I wasnot trying to pressure anyone
(17:15):
here but one of them lost hervoice because she got so
stressed out about it, and theother guy, he couldn't go in the
basement for months becausethat's where his computer office
was, so he just wouldn't go tothe basement, oh man.
And so we had to work throughand I had to reassure and talk
them through this, you know,reassure and talk them through
(17:39):
this.
And you know, because they hadjust built up a whole bunch of
of like self doubt through thisimposter syndrome and they need
to overcome that to be able toovercome the procrastination,
right, and the funny thing isthat they were feeling bad about
procrastinating, but thatwasn't really the issue.
Procrastination is kind of thisbig catch all term I'm not doing
stuff, but the real problem wasnot procrastinating, it was
(18:00):
imposter syndrome, right.
And then I'll say one morething that I think is a big one,
and that is and this is atricky one to throw in onto this
pile, but I think it's becauseit's more at a tactical level.
(18:23):
Some of these other things I'vejust been talking about are
more at the strategic level, butat a tactical level and I said
before, sort of at the tacticallevel I don't think people's
complaints about time managementare a real argument, because I
think when people find timedifficult, it's because they
have a big reason why they'respending their time somewhere
(18:43):
else.
That having been said, what Iwill say is and probably to some
extent this is true for the thenext topic as well but
accountability.
When you commit to doing a tasklike write a book, you are in
(19:09):
order to keep yourself going,moving forward.
You need to have some processfor holding yourself accountable
for continuing to move forward.
You know, otherwise nothingwill happen and you won't get
anywhere and you'll justprocrastinate right.
You won't do the thing that'snext on the list of things to do
(19:30):
, and so you have to have asystem of kind of keeping
yourself accountable.
There are lots of ways to holdyourself accountable.
The question isn't which one isthe right one.
The question is what's rightfor you?
There's literature about whatthe strongest forms of
accountability are, or that'sthat nailing?
Is it internal commitment?
Are you one of those people whoneeds other people to be
(19:52):
accountable to, or else youwon't do it?
That's a whole conversation wecan have in and of itself, but I
do believe 100% that you canhave a strong desire to do
something, you can have a goodplan, you can have, you know,
high motivation, all that stuff,but if you don't have a habit
(20:13):
of and a system for holdingyourself accountable, it's going
to be very difficult for younot to find yourself doing other
things when you shouldn't bewriting.
Because writing is such a quietsport right, it's the quietest
activity on the planet.
It never complains, it nevergets in your face, it allows
everyone else to take precedence, and so if you're not holding
(20:33):
yourself accountable to doingthat work, it's very easy to
lose track and not do it, and,you know, maybe not always
because you're trying to avoidstuff.
That's hard.
You know you've got other hardthings that need doing too, but
they're always going to belouder than writing, and so if
you don't have a system forkeeping yourself accountable to
the writing specifically, it'sgoing to be hard to get the
(20:54):
writing done.
Okay, so those are just, I think, some of the the you know, main
reasons that I see on a regularbasis for why people just
aren't getting things done.
Right Stays on the sludge pile,I'm afraid of it, it's too hard
, I'm not willing to do it.
Um, I, I, you know, uh, yeah,all those things.
(21:19):
So now, what is the?
What's the problem with that?
Like, who cares?
Right, no one asks you to writethe book.
So what does it really matter,right?
Well, I think there areactually quite a few costs to
procrastinating, right,obviously like the most tactical
level.
When you procrastinate, youdon't get stuff done, you lose
momentum, you are lessproductive, and if those things
(21:42):
matter for your job, that couldbe bad.
If you're doing it for apassion project, though, right,
it means a delay of your passion, right, if your dream is to
publish a book.
I know I have spoken to many,many people over the last year,
two years whose dream is topublish something.
If you do not keep moving, thatdream just keeps being denied,
(22:06):
and that's no fun for anyone.
But you know what One of theworst things about
procrastination is, and I knowthis from personal experience as
a kid who had a very difficulttime making himself do homework
or term papers.
Even worse back in the day,procrastination is a humongous
generator of stress and anxiety.
(22:26):
It's terrible, it's just awful.
It eats at you.
It eats at you all the time.
That's the worst thing about itis one project that you're
procrastinating on can ruinseven days of the week, right?
If you're not getting thingsdone on a regular basis, they
can eat at you and that feelsvery bad and we don't like that.
The world is crazy enough as itis.
Don't add more stress andanxiety by adding writing to the
(22:51):
list of things that arestressing out.
Use writing as the escape man,but if your writing turns from
an escape into an anxietyproducer, guess what's going to
happen?
You're not going to write,right, it's going to be a loop.
That's the worst thing.
If you procrastinate, then youstress about it, then you avoid
it because it's stressful, thenyou never do it.
And that would be me with mymath homework in eighth grade.
Like I stopped doing it for awhile.
It got more stressful.
(23:11):
I started doing worse.
I got even more stressful.
I avoided it harder.
It took me a couple years todig out of that problem, but
anyway, right, so that's bad.
Then let's talk about what itdoes to the quality of your work
.
Right, when you work in fitsand spurts.
Right, because youprocrastinated for a long time.
(23:32):
Oh, then you have to pull anall-nighter, and I know a bunch
of you think you're cool becauseyou did an all-nighter once or
twice in college and you got anA anyway, or at least you got a
B or something like that.
And yeah, that's cute whenyou're in college, but it
doesn't work.
When you're writing a novelDoesn't write.
When you're trying to write aNew York Times bestseller, you
got to bring your A game.
You bring your A game all thetime, and and working in fits
(23:53):
and spurts is not conducive todoing your best work at all, at
all.
Right, and then let's talk aboutthe spillover effects when you
procrastinate on your writing.
And this is especially true, ofcourse, if it's something
you're doing for money or forprofessional purposes, right.
But if you get out of whack andfall behind on that right, it's
(24:16):
going to have an impact onother projects that you're
working on, on your work-lifebalance.
You're going to end up havingto do crazy things that ruin
weekends or other stuff likethat right.
And the worst you knowpotential cost of
procrastination is you just loseout on the opportunities and
you miss the goals.
And you, you know, the careerthat you want, the life that you
(24:37):
want, the life that you want,the things that writing can help
build for you, are things youdon't get right.
So the cost of procrastinatingis sadly quite high, right?
So, okay, that's scary.
Enough of that talk, let's.
How do we not procrastinate,though?
How do we not procrastinate?
Well, well, thankfully, thereare probably as many potential
(25:00):
strategies for notprocrastinating as there are
reasons that peopleprocrastinate in the first place
, and so the reason I wanted towalk through, kind of, you know,
the diagnosis phase first iswhich of these strategies is
going to be most useful to youwill depend on what your issue
is right.
If it's fear, it's going to beone thing.
If it's imposter syndrome, itmight be another.
(25:21):
If it's being overwhelmed, itwill be another.
If it's accountability.
It will be another right.
But it won't be any realsurprise to you to hear me say
that embracing a system ofwriting for creating a healthy
writing routine is probably oneof the best antidotes to
(25:42):
procrastination that you canhave.
And it starts from thebeginning.
So let me just walk you throughthe system and remind you why
it helps against procrastination.
The first step is to craft acompelling vision, to anchor
your writing in a compellingvision of your life, like where
are you trying to go?
(26:03):
How is writing getting youthere?
And making sure that whatyou're writing is tied directly
to that path, so that you knowevery time you sit down right,
you're moving, bit by bit,closer to the life that you want
.
That's, that's the kind ofmotivation you want, right,
right.
When I finally got through mycomprehensive exams in graduate
school, I was finally donewriting papers for other people
(26:26):
on topics that they chose, whichI never liked doing and I
finally got to write my own bookfor the first time.
I had a blast doing that.
It was terrifying, I didn'tknow what I was doing, but I had
a blast doing it.
Finally, this was what I washere for Building my own career
right, putting my mark on thefield, putting my ideas out in
(26:50):
the world.
That's what I was here for andthat kept me going, man, as hard
as it was and as bad as I wasat it.
Man, it would have stoppedsomeone with less motivation
than I had I'll tell you what.
But I was very enthusiastic andI want you to feel that way
about your writing every day.
Every day you sit down, youshould be thrilled because it's
putting you closer to where youreally want to be.
So that's one thing.
(27:13):
Start with the vision.
The second thing is planning.
If you are feeling overwhelmed,if you are procrastinating
because you don't know what todo next, you need to sit down
and plan that thing out.
Chunk that, sucker up.
Read the workbook on projectchunking and figure out how to
create tactics using a 12-weekplan to lay out the next steps
(27:37):
in an organized fashion.
Right?
If you need help, we can helpwith that, right?
Coaches, mentors, other writershelp get feedback on that stuff
.
Right?
Easy money.
Mastering the use of time right,I talked about how time should
probably not be a problem, ifyou know, because that's not
(27:57):
usually the real reason, right?
But it is also true that, inorder to get as much done as we
want.
We need to be careful in ouruse of time.
So having a clear model, weekand time blocking and time
boxing efficiently so that weare making the most of our days,
very useful for moving forwardmore quickly.
Then a huge one is the fourthpiece of the system, which is
(28:22):
the weekly writing routine.
Right, and here I think this isreally where the rubber hits
the road for folks right, if youmake your writing a routine, by
definition what a routine doesis it makes something easier and
more enjoyable and morerewarding.
(28:42):
Right, that's a healthy routine.
And so your goal with the12-week gear for writer system,
right, or any other system thatyou might be using, is to figure
out how to make your writing,is to be strategic and think
forward.
How can I make my week ofwriting, how can I structure my
life, my week, my writing, sothat my writing is easier, more
(29:02):
enjoyable and more rewarding?
And when you do those things,it's inevitable that you're
going to do it.
You can listen to otherpodcasts about the weekly
writing routine and stuff tohear more about that process,
but doing a weekly review sothat you make sure you know what
you're about and you got thelist of things to do next, so
you're not wondering what thatis.
(29:22):
Every week, scheduling yourwriting sessions so that you're
using time well and you'recommitting yourself to and
holding yourself accountable togo do the writing.
Having a plan sorry, having aplan at each session, so you
know what you're doing.
Meeting with a weekly writinggroup right?
This is one of the biggest,most easiest hacks you can do to
(29:47):
prevent procrastination.
Most people, right?
It doesn't matter whetheryou're an internal motivation
person or an external motivationperson.
You will get a huge benefitfrom a weekly writing group
either way.
If you're an internalmotivation person, you will get
a huge benefit from a weeklywriting group Either way.
If you're an internalmotivation person, now you don't
necessarily need a writinggroup to help keep you
accountable, but what you willget there is motivation, support
(30:09):
, collaboration, feedback allsorts of things that help make
you write as best as you can butalso give you the encouragement
and enthusiasm to amplify yourinternal accountability.
If you're one of those peoplewho really can use external
accountability, a writing groupis perfect, because knowing that
you're going to have to fess upwhat you did and didn't do last
(30:31):
week compared to what you saidto your writing group, it keeps
a lot of people on track.
So a weekly writing group, man,that is a huge, huge killer of
procrastination.
I do not know.
I have had the benefit over,you know, several decades now,
of always having differentwriting groups in play, and I
used, you know, when I was anacademic, I had basically a
(30:54):
writing group for each article Iwould be working on.
So I would have sometimes asmany as three writing groups a
week for different projects, andwithout those meeting weekly,
those things never would havegotten done.
Period, period end, and notjust because, you know, no one
was lazy, but it's very easy ina busy life to procrastinate.
Very easy, right, becausethere's a lot to do and things
(31:17):
are hard and you're like, well,you know what, I'd rather do the
easier thing than the hardthing.
So, okay, so it gets pushed offanother week, but if you know
you're having a meeting, yeah,don't push it off, right.
So a weekly writing group, hugefor overcoming procrastination.
What else can we talk about here?
The fear stuff, right?
(31:37):
So this is an interesting one,because I think, if you are
finding that fear is blockingyou from moving forward, I think
there are probably at leastthree things that you could do.
The first thing is that youmight talk to a mental health
(32:03):
professional, right?
Therapy is a fantastic way tograpple with emotional fears of
all kinds, and it wouldabsolutely be a great idea if
you feel like your fear offailure or criticism or whatever
it might be, is really holdingyou back from sitting down and
(32:28):
working or from finishingsomething.
I know a lot of people who I'vetold this story before, but I
know more than one professor whogot so upset about criticism
and negative reviews that theywrite things and then they just
put them in their desk now andthey don't bother trying to
publish anymore because they'rejust so upset by that.
Well, that sounds to me likesomething a professional should
(32:48):
probably help with, right and Idon't say that like I go to
therapy, like you know.
This is a good thing to do, sothat's one right.
If your fear is sort of more ofthe garden variety, the kind
we're all dealing with, and youknow something you feel like,
you can work on two otheroptions.
One is get a writing group, andwhat's that writing group going
(33:09):
to do?
That writing group is going tohave all the same fears you do,
and one of the best ways toovercome fear of failure, fear
of rejection, fear of all ofthose things, and imposter
syndrome to boot, is to talkabout it out loud, because this
stuff dies and becomes much moreright-sized when you talk about
it out loud.
Because this stuff dies andbecomes much more right-sized
when you talk about it out loudand you realize everyone's
afraid of the same stuff andthere's really no alternative to
(33:31):
go forward and we can all laughabout being afraid of it, right
?
I have tons of examples in mylife like this where once you
finally talk about it, yourealize okay, I'm going to be
scared of it, but I can handleit.
And then a third option that Ifind very, very important and I
say this as someone who has beenan advisor and a mentor and a
coach for a very long time isit's very natural again I'll
(33:54):
just say it it's very natural tobe afraid of things, especially
when you're trying a big, hairynew thing.
It's totally normal and it'salso something that a coach or a
professor, an advisor, a mentorcan help with immensely.
You know they can walk youthrough the kinds of things that
you can do to kind of grapplewith those fears.
(34:16):
They can tell you stories thatwill help put things in
perspective right, depending onwhat your particular situation
is, and they can tell you theirown goofy stories about when
they had a problem and this andthat, and, believe me, we've all
got them right.
And so having a coach help youthrough that, like, coach you
through, walk you through itright, that can be, that can be
another great way to do it.
(34:37):
So I I really recommend any andall of those sort of different
options.
I'll say sort of one other onemore of a sort of an
instrumental strategy that Ifind really, really very useful,
and that is something that Ilearned about a long time ago
(35:02):
when my wife was writing herdissertation, she read a book
that introduced me to the ideaof the zero draft and the zero
draft.
The specifics actually don'tmatter very much, but the zero
draft is, as the name suggests,a, a first draft.
That's even less than a firstdraft, but basically you lower
(35:22):
the bar of quality to zero.
You don't edit all gas, nobrakes.
You basically write an entireversion of the book quickly on
an intentionally compressedtimeline in order to just get
the whole waterfront out there,more like a treatment of the
book.
This isn't got all the contentin it, but it's all the content
I can put in it, plus all thesignposts for what it's going to
(35:44):
be.
This section I don't have but'sgonna be this and that and
maybe just got a bunch of bulletpoints and some ideas and some
free writing and all that sortof stuff.
Uh, if you're afraid offinishing something, writing a
zero draft first kind of crushesthe fear because all of a
sudden you have a finished likeyou have a complete draft now.
Is it a little fraudulent?
Yeah, sort of, but it's alsocomplete.
(36:05):
And at that point all sorts ofamazing things happen.
Number one you have the wholething and now you just have to
finish it.
It's just polishing at thatpoint it's not making it.
The making part was scary, butyou just got to the end there
real quick and now all it is isfinishing A lot easier mentally.
The other thing you do is youactually give yourself a chance
(36:25):
to make it even better, becauseit's easier to move things
around when you can see all thepieces and all the waterfront
rather than trying to figure out.
I'm in chapter three.
What do I need to do to makesure it's?
You don't know yet.
So having the whole thing isgreat, so so zero draft is kind
of a mentality, not just aspecific thing, because you can
zero draft a chapter, you canzero draft a section, you can
(36:48):
zero draft the whole book, youcan zero draft.
But here's the other thingDon't think of your book as the
last chance to write the book,right?
You know, one of the things Iwas just joking with somebody
yesterday about is that old sawthat you know, books are never
finished, we just abandon them.
And you know, I can tell you.
I can look at any book I'veever written and say, yep, I can
(37:09):
tell you the 23 things I stillwish I did with that book, or I
need another chapter or whatever.
But yeah, you run out of time,you gotta publish these dang
things.
Um so, so.
But but think expressly aboutbooks being iterations, right?
You?
So I'm in lots of like.
If it's nonfiction, for example, it can be a first edition.
(37:29):
You can write another one,right?
And for people who are writinglike business books or academic
works and stuff like that, youwould never publish the very
first version of something youwrote anyway.
Right?
If you're an academic, you'regoing to take it to conference
or two or three or five, and getlots of feedback before you
publish it.
So you don't have to worryabout the first draft.
Don't worry.
(37:49):
Find ways to take the worrydown and the cost of failure
down.
So take it down by making thezero draft mentality kind of
your strategy.
I'm going to find low-cost waysto deliver finished product and
get feedback Right.
(38:13):
Another and related tactic fordealing with fear in particular,
and imposter syndrome I thinkas well, is a somewhat
counterintuitive phrase, whichis fail early and fail often.
I know I've talked about thisbefore, but for me, you know the
(38:34):
imagine two scenarios.
One is you write a one sentencedescription of the book you
want to write and you share itwith someone.
How scared does that feel?
Not very scary?
Let's say you write 300 pagesand you share it with someone
for their feedback.
How scary is that?
Okay, that's very scary, right?
(38:55):
So so by fail early and failoften, what we want to do with
all kinds of writing, I don'tcare what kind is is you want to
share it as early as possibleand as often as possible.
The fail early part is a joke.
It doesn't necessarily meanthere's any failure, but you're
going to find out often, right,how's it feeling, how's it
(39:16):
looking, how's it looking?
So if you are writing somethingthat's for professional purposes
, keep giving it to peers whocan tell you hey, is this
meeting the bar?
Is this meeting the bar, isthis good, is this good Right?
Or a mentor, or if you'rewriting fiction, it's a writing
group who can give you feedbackHow's that character, how's this
character, how's the plot,how's this Right?
And the earlier you share right, the earlier you can be
confident to add another blockRight.
(39:37):
If you share the idea for thebook and people go, oh, that'd
be kind of cool.
And then you expand it a littlebit more and here's a little
treatment, oh, yeah, well, Ireally like what you're doing
with that.
Oh, now you have the confidenceto outline the whole thing, and
now you have confidence towrite right.
And each time you get a littlemore feedback, a little more
feedback, so that by the timeyou publish something, you're
not revealing it for the firsttime to the world.
You don't have to be scared.
(39:58):
You're actually going to bebrimming with confidence because
you've gotten tons of positivefeedback the whole way.
And I think you know, I thinkmaybe younger people, maybe some
of you have a more of a writingin public kind of a mindset
because of social media andstuff like that.
But but my sense is fromtalking to people that writers
for some reason still are kindof the other way around.
(40:20):
They tend towards that lonewolf.
They tend towards that I'mgoing to hide my creativity
under a blanket until it's timeto reveal it to the world.
And you know that's you knowromantic and, I guess, cool and
all.
But frankly it's terrible foryour mental health and it's not
good for the quality of yourwork either, because you don't
give other people a chance tohelp you make it great.
So I really recommend sort ofthat zero draft and fail early,
(40:44):
fail often, mentality All right.
I don't want to go too long.
I'm sure there's more we couldsay about procrastinating, but
I've got other things I need todo and I don't want to
procrastinate and get into them.
So I hope you enjoyed thisepisode, hope you got something
out of it.
Hit me up at Trevor at12weekyearforwriterscom if you
have thoughts or comments orwant to share your
(41:07):
procrastination journey.
And until next time, happywriting.
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