I Need a Procrastination Cure!
Dear Em and Lil,
I like the idea of doing something creative for work and being my own boss, but I procrastinate and stop enjoying things whenever they have real stakes (even things I usually like to do.) Any tips on how I can keep having fun with my creative pursuits while also taking them more seriously?
-Lazy Larry
EM: My advice for you is advice for myself. I whole-heartedly haven’t solved this problem and will attempt to coach us both toward success. The move is to use incentives to your advantage. and the first step is to establish some achievable goals for the coming week/month.
Get some accountability. If you ever want to accomplish your goals, it is going to need to hurt not to. Ask a friend to be your accountability coach. Lillian, I will give you $100 if I don’t find a new dentist by the end of the week. Lil is on board because she is looking for a new duvet cover and you are on board because you don’t want to lose $100. Put some skin in the game so your imagined goals can take on real meaning.
Reward yourself… sparingly. I used to work at a summer camp where the kids were given ice Klondike Bars every day at 2:00. One day, the camp director got excited and bought everyone watermelon. The campers were in consensus that Klondike > watermelon.
If you are rewarding yourself all the time, self care will lose its power over you. Decide on a couple of “rewards,” be they mac and cheese or podcasts, and grant yourself access only when you have accomplished something fab.
LIL: It sounds like your problem may actually be less one of laziness and more a reaction to perceived pressure.
Deadlines can be helpful for creative people, but they can also cause your flight (as in fight or flight) instinct to kick in. It sounds like you may be more motivated by internal goals, like improving your work or having fun, than external ones, like success, fame, meeting your celebrity crush.
If the stakes start to feel too high, put aside the specific project for a bit and do something to get back into practice mode. Do whatever your creative medium’s version of playing scales or painting a still life is.
Let’s say you’re trying to start a business making clay animals. Someone wants to pay you to make them a clay horse, and you’ve been putting it off. Instead of procrastinating by watching TV, procrastinate by making parrots and whales and other animals that no one has asked you to make!
You can apply this to whatever you’re working on. If you’re a songwriter who is stuck on a new song, spend a half an hour figuring out how to play some random hit from your childhood. Trick yourself into seeing your creative work as the treat instead of the chore. You’ll still be exercising the muscles you need for the “real” work.
My other anti-procrastination recommendation: let yourself get really bored! For me, being bored has become a rarer and rarer feeling since the early 90s. Consequently, I’ve gotten much worse at making up epic and complicated stories in my head while looking out a car window. You might think that’s because I’m not a child anymore, but in fact, it’s because I now have a phone to look at instead.
Sure, some people probably get their creativity on due to a “lightbulb moment,” but I find that most of my inspiration comes from “literally having nothing else to do.” Let yourself be that desperate, and I bet the wheels will start to turn!
