A Procrastination Test to Uncover Procrastination

Patterns

Posted Jun 04, 2010

Submitted by Bill Knaus Ed.D. on June 15, 2010 - 8:32pm

Writer's block is common and can be costly. Many lose opportunities by avoiding writing. So,
thanks for stimulating this discussion on overcoming writer's blocks.

I'll give a general introduction and then emphasize ideas for how to start to address this common
form of procrastination.

Most writing activities involve constructing reports, generating correspondence, making inquiries
for information, and engaging in other daily activities where you scribe a note or click computer
keys to shape a written statement. Some written work products may be extensive and involve
research. These works in process include doing a doctorial dissertation where you are likely to
have extensive preparatory work that takes place prior to and during the time of constructing the
usual outlines and drafts. Others are creative processes: writing novels, generating poetry,
drafting Broadway plays, and so forth. Each writing process can be accompanied by
procrastination, and now you face the never-ending conflict between moving forward on the
project and diversionary side-stepping actions.

Is writer’s block a fancy, catchy, phrase for procrastination on starting or completing written
work? Largely yes. As to thoughts on unblocking, the following is generic:

• Writer’s block sounds like creative ideas are plugged up and lay fallow in the mind waiting a
time when they’ll emerge in the form of written expression. Thus, you’ll find some “creative types”
waiting for the arrival of their muses, waiting to feel inspired, or waiting for a blazing
breakthrough of insights that you then flood onto your electronic mind (your computer.). These
forms of delays are a form of contingency manaña thinking and distractions. What if the “muse”
goes on a permanent vacation?

• Look at what you tell yourself, how you feel, and what you do if you have your shoes tied in a
hesitation waltz moving away from the writing task. Is there anything in your anticipation that you
think interferes with getting the writing task off your back? Can you identify and punch holes in
your form of procrastination thinking?

• Take a few extra steps to create a functional set of anticipations to compete with the
procrastination hesitation waltz. For example, commit to an early time to start writing and before
that, commit to five-minutes to create a process plan on the keyboard: What you do first, second,
third, and so forth.
• Use your plan as an action template. Include a rough schedule where you carve out time for
writing or doing non-writing but critical path phases of this self-management plan. There is an
action framework in the workbook for how to move in this self-efficacy direction (Chapter 6:
Getting Your Bearings). Chapter 7 in the End Procrastination Now book elaborates on this
planning process. Pages 108-109 in the same book distills ideas from the Prussian General Carl
von Clauswitz’s book on War as it applies to decisiveness on following through on critical tasks.

• Use the ideas you get about cutting through procrastination barriers in tandem with following
through, on the writing. However, if you use the written material as a prerequisite for action,
you’ve fallen into the contingency manaña trap. (Using a procrastination book(s) as an excuse to
delay is creative, but rarely effective!)

• For members of many professional writer groups, procrastination is a nemesis. Many reporters
and journalists would tend to procrastinate, and keep procrastinating on their articles without
deadlines and “taskmaster” editors. These time restraints are friendly in the sense that they limit
the amount that can be said.

• By committing to an early start time (a preliminary deadline), and pushing yourself to start on
time, you may avoid the last minute rush and the stresses and pressures that typically come at the
end. Most people don’t work better under pressure, but pressure is often the trigger for starting.
Starting early may be “abnormal,” but some forms of abnormality are healthy and functional. The
journalist or reporter procrastination syndrome is best avoided. Also, forcing yourself to start
earlier and setting up an earlier deadline can help you avoid the downside of Parkinson's Law,
which is that work will fill the time that is available for it. However, anticipate that a writing task
may take more time than planned, and you are probably right. If you finish sooner, you get a time
and effort bonus.

• By executing a counter procrastination plan for meeting a writing challenge you may square up
against automatic avoidance habits that have probably developed over many years and that may
be functionally autonomous—they continue well beyond any original purpose they may have
served. Like facing any automatic problem habit, you’ll also likely experience inertia against
change when you act to disrupt and destruct your procrastination process. Anticipate this. Plan to
execute your plan whether these "natural" impediments occur or not. If you experience inertia,
refuse to collapse and you are on your way to managing expectations. I'll admit this is easier said
than done, but what is the alternative?

• A complex form of writing procrastination can have different combinations of triggers including
performance anxieties, self-doubts, intolerance for uncertainty, perfectionism, and not wanting to
do something that may be arduous, unpleasant, or lengthy. You can better figure out what is going
on as you engage the writing process. Keep a notebook handy and write down you observations of
yourself, and what you do to overcome procrastination barriers when you feel and urge to
diverge. Simultaneously deal with procrastinatiuon as you write, and you accomplish two positive
results. I know this can seem challenge, and it is! Chipping away at a problem habit is a way to cut
through the provrastination barrier about writing.

• Completing complex writing tasks—even when you follow a formula—is a process. The process
involves developing ideas and paring them down and repeating the process until it is time to stop.
You won’t get far unless you start. That’s obvious, but telling yourself the obvious helps put the
matter into perspective. This reminder also shows your awareness of the role procrastination
plays in impeding your progress.

• Completing formal writing tasks typically involve doing drafts. Through this process you can
progressively gain control over the shape of your written expression, conform to the format for
the type of work product you are producing, and persuasively convince readers through thought-
out and organized ideas. This is rarely a finger-snapping process. (It can pay to remind yourself
that this is a process, not an event. It is as it is.)

• If you view writing as arduous, difficult, unpleasant, frustrating, or distasteful and then put it off,
this is an emotional dimension of procrastination. It’s a form of anticipation where you suggest to
yourself that these experiences are fearsome. But what is so fearsome about unpleasantness or
discomfort?

• View writing as an extension of your “self,” and an indelible reflection of your intelligence,
worth, and as an object of external judgment, then you grease the slippery slope of self-doubt. It’s
ten easy to find excuses for delay when you represent to yourself that your global worth is
contingent on writing quickly and well. That contigent worth thinking froths with a common
fallacy. Can you think of a positive alternative?

• A combined discomfort-dodging and self-doubt formula figuratively tangles you in your

emotional underwear and can inspire a retreat from writing. Take steps to oppose this self-
hindering combination by starting to click keys and create script. Once you start, it;s easier to
continue. This form of practice sets up a competing system for the self-doubt-self-downing
discomfort-dodging pattern that is often seen in procrastination about writing. An alternative is to
get reasonable writings done in a reasonable time in a reasonable way, which is the Do it Now
approach.