Procrastination and overwhelm
Why we put things off
Good afternoon everyone!
This is Georgia from Out of Hours, the newsletter for people who want to be creative and make the most of their hours on this planet. Thanks so much for your kind reception to the first ever Substack post. Every time someone leaves a ‘heart’ I get a notification and it means so much to newsletter writers like me to know these words are being read! Thank you too to everyone who left a comment - it’s a joy to read them and let’s keep the conversation going.
A note on procrastination
This week I’ve been reflecting on procrastination: why do we not stick to what we say we’re going to do? And why do we find it so hard to make time for the things we love to do?
It seems crazy that so many of us have creative ideas while on a run, or even in the shower, but find it so hard to sit down and make time for it.
Sometimes it is to do with a genuine lack of time.
For those of you with kids, or with demanding schedules, or who are caring for loved ones - there is less actual time in the day and there is less emotional capacity available in the time you have off. After all, we may all have the same 24 hours in a day - but many of us have commitments, obligations and stresses which take away our ability to find mental space for creative work (or simply didn’t have the right support network, teachers or role models to feel encouraged in the first place).
But for many people, there actually are slithers of time - used for Netflix or doomscrolling - that we could use to replenish ourselves with creative projects. Burn-out is real - and sometimes it’s caused more by NOT doing the stuff we love doing, rather than working too much.
So how do we actually get going and start the things we want to do? Especially when we don’t feel like it?
Action before motivation
Sometimes it’s tempting to wait until we are motivated to do something. It’s true for the gym, and especially true for creative work. It feels so great to write, edit, draw or build when we are feeling good - so maybe we can just wait until that time happens again…? The issue is that the longer we leave it, the higher our expectation. We expect our next piece to be amazing, and this puts pressure on it, makes us feel overwhelmed and, you guessed it, leads to procrastination.
The solution is forcing yourself to do half an hour on your side project or hobby. Even if it feels like treading through mud.
Focus on primary problems, don’t add secondary problems
In Buddhism, there is a parable about an arrow. The Buddha allegedly said to one of his students: ‘If a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?’. When the student confirmed it was, he asked: “If the person is struck by a second arrow, is it even more painful?”. Of course the student nodded.
The Buddha explained: “In life, we can’t always control the first arrow. However, the second arrow is our reaction to the first. This second arrow is optional.’ What he meant is that we often layer on additional problems by analysing, regretting, worrying, fearing, or berating ourselves. These are our second arrows, and as creative people we can reduce a lot of our suffering by focusing on our reaction to the first arrow - focusing on what is in our control.
Writer Douglas Adams, famous for penning ‘The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy’, wrote notes to himself. On one page of typed notes, Adams wrote: “Today I am monumentally fed up with the idea of writing. I haven’t actually written anything for two days, and that makes me fed up as well.’
Not writing is the first arrow. Being fed up is the second arrow.
Break the cycle with action, not worry. (and check out Morning Pages for specific notes on how to use action to get out of writers block)
Remind yourself it is your life
It’s easy to get caught up in other people’s expectations, reactions and anticipations. It’s even easy to get caught up in our own self-imposed deadlines and expectations that don’t serve us.
Make sure to take time every week or so to look at your to-do list, or your creative ambitions, and ask yourself: am I doing this for me? Am I doing this out of obligation or because there’s a reason/there’s fun in it? We don’t have to do creative work - we get to do it because it’s joyful.
And if you read one thing on procrastination (to procrastinate), read this killer piece from Tim Urban.
I’d love to know: what do you think causes procrastination? And how do you beat procrastination?
Loved this. Last year taught me a lot about just doing things for the sake of doing them so that one day you'll actually feel motivated to do them and the joy that might have been missing turns up! I especially liked the part about reminding yourself it's your life - so true and a really good idea to do an audit of what you're doing/not doing and why. Thanks for this, Georgia!
Lovely article. I would say reduce the size of your task or to do list. I struggle a lot with wanting to do a lot, fast. Which eventually leads me to doing less. Give yourself small chunks of work. A 1 item to-do list for instance. Something super achievable. And soon you’ll be over delivering.
As someone once said: make sure to aim low enough.