Confession of a Master Procrastinator

How "Just do" is my "thin edge of the wedge" in my battle against over-thinking

Dear artist (yes, that means you),

Again, I’m blocked. Stuck in an endless round of distractions, learning—that is really a thinly cloaked distraction—and frustration—because I’m distracted. Again I listen for the one gem that might, just might, help me overcome… me.

I know I’m the block and the most absurd thing is that I even know how to get over myself. Just let go, just write; breathe and dive in.

But I can’t. Have you ever had a dream where you have the feeling that you are unable to run away from something that terrifies you? Where your feet feel glued to the floor, or your legs just don’t want to move as fast as you need. Wading in sludge you urge your arms to swing, your legs to pump, for movement. But nothing works, nothing feels right. You’re held back, you’re trapped, desperately aware that the source of your terror is going to appear at any moment in your periphery—just when you possibly wake up.

In reverse, that is exactly how procrastination feels to me. Instead of fleeing, I simply cannot move forward. I know how to move, I know and have all the evidence I need that I can do it, but I can’t. My eggy feeling of anxiety is the sludge that holds me back. I can do anything else than the thing I want and need to do. I can easily run away, I just can’t run towards it.

How do I beat it? Frequently I don’t. No matter the encouragement I gratefully receive, no matter the praise, I remain full of good intentions; pregnant with prose; my creativity constipated.

Nothing bolsters my malaise quite as well as praise, criticism or deadlines. They all serve to remind me that, respectively, my best work is behind me, my best work is never possible, and any work I produce is late. They compound my self doubt like interest on savings in better times.

When I’m good, I face not being that good next time. When I’m bad I may always be that bad. And if it’s definitely got to be done, it won’t be. There’s no praise that I can’t turn into self doubt, criticism I can’t absorb and deadlines I can’t dodge, much to the tragedy of it all.

I could give up, but sadly I love this work. I don’t just need to create, I love to. My love is the cause of all this pain, which I suppose is, after all, perhaps the price of love.

So what helps? Two words, one principle: Just do. I am a coder and a writer, and so I have to code and write every single day. It’s a habit I force on myself. I might not be able to code or write what I should, but I absolutely must not stop. Stopping is personally reprehensible, so I can’t, I won’t.

I force me to do something, and doing something gets me moving again. It means I’ve already taken the leap and I didn’t die so maybe I can take another, more focussed, leap. One with a deadline. One where I can feel the pull of procrastination, the sludge forming around my feet, but where that pull has been lessened a little by the evidence that I can actually do this. I can carry on because I’ve already started. “Just doing” is my anti-stall mechanism:

I can’t say whether this will work for you. Whether a principle of “Just do” will push you past distraction, procrastination, the pain and frustration of the pause. But I hope it does. I truly, with every fibre of my being, hope it does.

Because the world needs your writing. Your creativity. Maybe now more than ever. The world needs you to be able to do this thing, whatever your thing is. Good work, bad work, mistake, mishap or work of genius, it doesn’t matter. If you’re bringing your own beauty, your own art, into the world, it’s too important for you to be blocked. Your work is too necessary to be over-thought, over-considered and smothered in procrastination.

The world is waiting. It needs your art. Don’t be the reason that you don’t do it.

Just do.

love, Russ x