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Six reaSOnS WhY We prOCraSTinaTe anD Six STraTegieS
TO pUT OFF pUTTing OFF
reason 1. You haven’t really Committed to Doing the Job
If you were to attend a workshop for would-be and beginning
novelists and ask them why they want to write a novel, a project
that demands a huge commitment of time, energy, and emotion,
most of the answers would fall into one of three categories.
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The first reason, simply stated, is that the writer feels good
while writing (or, conversely, feels wretched when denied the
opportunity to write). For some, writing seems to be almost an
addiction or a compulsion, although a relatively harmless one as
addictions go.
The second set of reasons basically cluster around the notion
of communication and storytelling: “I have something to say, and
a novel seems to be the best way to say it,” or “I’ve got a story I
want or need to tell.” Some folks even say that the story seems to
be using them to get itself told.
The third set of reasons stems from the notion, sadly mistaken,
that novelists become rich and famous with relatively little effort.
Many of the folks in this group don’t want to write a novel; they want
to have written a novel, so they can reap the supposed rewards.
Most of the folks in the first category and many in the second
actually go on to write that novel. Few in the third group ever do.
Occasionally you would hear a reason that doesn’t fall into any
of these categories.
“My English teacher back in good old P.S. 134 said I’d make a
good novelist,” one might say, or “Folks in my book group think
my life story would be inspirational.”
Assuming that they aren’t being coy, that they don’t really mean
“I think I’d make a great novelist,” or “I think my life story would
be inspirational,” an appropriate response to this sort of reason
borders on Mom’s old admonition: “If somebody told you to jump
off a cliff, would you do it?”
The key here is the source of the motivation. We generally
don’t need to force or trick ourselves into performing actions that
are internally motivated. But the more the motivation comes from
the English teacher or the book club or the mate or the boss or any
other external source, the less likely we are to do it.
Know anybody who got into the family bakery business,
or became a lawyer, or joined the Marines because somebody
expected or demanded it? If so, you probably know an unhappy
baker or lawyer or Marine.
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You may chronically put off an activity because you aren’t
really sold on doing it at all. Reasons include:
• You don’t think it’s your job.
• You think it’s somebody else’s job.
• The job’s a waste of time.
• You have important things to do.
If that’s the case, you need to answer two fundamental questions:
1. What’s in it for me if I do it?
2. What will happen to me if I don’t?
The first question may redirect and increase your motivation.
You’re no longer doing it because someone said you ought to.
You’re doing it to impress a boss, help a friend, make money, or
get to a task you really enjoy.
The second question is the negative of the first. Your motiva-
tion may become avoidance of something unpleasant, like a lousy
job evaluation, an angry, alienated spouse, or a disappointed child,
for example.
If you can find no internal motivation—no benefit for doing the
job and no penalty for not doing it, you may well decide not to do
it at all. It’s not one of your priorities, and you probably shouldn’t
be doing it.
Even if you can see a benefit to doing the job, you may still
decide that the costs in time and energy (and the other things you
aren’t doing) outweigh the benefits. In that case you can:
1. Do what you have to do to get out of the job. That’s not
the same thing as simply putting it off. This is an active,
conscious decision not to do it and to accept the conse-
quences, if any. In the long run, that sort of decision costs
less, in time and stress, than does the passive resistance
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of procrastination. You will feel relief when the job is no
longer hanging over your head.
Or
2. Do it anyway—but for your own reasons.
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