Procrastination

My sister has dubbed her son the king of procrastination because he often waits until the last minute to start an assignment and then he has to pull an all nighter to get it completed and emailed to the professor before the appointed time.  I have to admit when I was in college, I also waited to the last minute to start term papers etc, though I never had to pull an all nighter.  I did spend an entire three day Thanksgiving weekend writing three papers though.  I never did that again so in a sense I guess it taught me a lesson.

What it didn’t teach me was how to stop procrastinating.  I can rationalize putting off almost anything.  I can’t do it today, it’s too nice to spend the day doing whatever the chore might be or I can’t do it today, it’s my only day to relax all week, or it’s such a crappy chore, I’ll do it tomorrow.

As much as I love writing, I find myself sometimes procrastinating instead of sitting down and working on my current ms.  I can’t explain why I do it.  But when I do do it, I always tell myself, “oh I’ll write extra pages the rest of the week to make up for today” or “I’ll write over the weekend.”  Well, I rarely write on the weekend.  Between running errands, doing the major household chores, planning menus for the upcoming week and grocery shopping, not to mention trying to spend time with the family, there’s little time for writing on Saturday and Sunday.

I didn’t make any New Year’s Resolutions this year but I do want to try and stop procrastinating or at least do less of it.  One way I hope will help is instead of setting goals in increments of 3 months, 6 months, and for the year, I’m setting monthly goals.  I’m hoping this will help in a couple of ways. 

1. It really will help me stop procrastinating.
2. It will keep my writing schedule on track.
3. I might actually be able to write more than one book this year.

Do you procrastinate?  How are you trying to break the habit?  If not, did you in past?  How did you get past it? 

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Rachel Brimble will be my guest on Wednesday, 1/18.