Summary

The article provides strategies for maintaining productivity during periods of writing resistance.

Abstract

The author shares personal experiences with writing procrastination and offers six activities to channel unproductive time into beneficial tasks. These include idea journaling, finding visuals for articles, collecting resonant quotes, revisiting old work, reading admired authors, and listening to educational podcasts. The author emphasizes the importance of staying engaged with writing-related activities, even when not actively writing, to foster creativity and motivation.

Opinions

The author believes that idea generation is crucial in the writing industry and suggests maintaining an idea journal, possibly using digital tools like Notion.
Visuals are considered a vital component of storytelling, with the author recommending the preemptive selection of images to save time and inspire completion of articles.
Quotes are valued for their ability to enhance articles, build credibility, and provide closure; the author advises keeping a repository of impactful quotes.
Reflecting on past work is seen as a way to gauge personal growth, reignite passion for writing, and generate new ideas.
Reading works by and about admired individuals is encouraged for inspiration and learning effective writing styles.
Podcasts are recommended as a means to learn, stay motivated, and overcome feelings of isolation during writing struggles.
The author admits to procrastinating tasks perceived as challenging or tedious and suggests that genuine interest in a topic can reduce resistance to writing.

6 Things To Do When You Don’t Feel Like Writing

Is this productive procrastination? Perhaps.

There are times when I don’t want to write, even when I know I should. It makes me guilty every night when I think about how little I have written all day.

It may not happen with everyone, but some of you would agree, right?

After spending days and weeks dreading the time I wasted not writing, I came up with ideas about where I should spend my time when I am not writing.

Sharing my 7 tips to stay productive while procrastinating writing.

1. Idea Journaling

Ideas may not be valued in the start-up ecosystems, but ideas are worth a lot in the writing industry. One right idea for an article or a book can change your life.

I have multiple idea journals, and I recently started using Notion for note-taking all the ideas that come to my mind.

These ideas need not be original; they could be the notes from your favorite podcast, some lessons from a Tedtalk, or your favorite quotes from a book. Ideas usually come when you explore new things and consume content that makes you think and make new neuron connections.

When you are not writing, you can note down what you’ve been consuming lately, what’s making you excited, or any specific thought that’s recurring.

You can also digitalize these thoughts for safer keep.

The best ideas come to me at around 1 am every morning, so most of my ideas are stored on Notes App. I usually transfer all my article ideas to my Notion Idea database to never run out of ideas when I sit down to write.

2. Find Visuals

When I started writing on Medium, I spent 20–30 minutes before finalizing the right image to go with my article.

As a designer, I was very particular about the picture; sometimes, I wouldn’t like the image's temperature with the kind of article. I had tons of issues, in short. When you spend hours and hours on an essay, you want it to be perfect, right? I do too.

Once I figured out it took me this long to find a suitable image, I started using my procrastination time to find out pictures for my articles beforehand.

Creating an image deck saved me a ton of time and inspired me to finish most of the articles. It was a motivation.

A header image is a crucial part of your story on Medium, on your blog, and as writers, we are responsible for the visual aspect of our piece. The next time you don’t feel like writing, you can scroll through Unsplash, Pixabey, or any site of your choice to find images that go with your hand.

3. Quote Resonance

Who doesn’t like adding quotes in their articles?

Quotes make an article complete, build credibility, and give another perspective. They often save you when you don’t find the right words/message to close your article (guilty as charged).

Before keeping a Quote Resonance, I would spend 10–20 minutes finding the right quote because nothing is worse than knowing the right quote to add to your story but not finding it online due to our low retention.

We think we’ll remember it, but the truth is we won’t.

To avoid that mistake, I now save all the quotes I like and resonate with. I post most of them on my Twitter. Every time I see a quote that lights me up, I tweet it. People think about why I am creating content and sharing random quotes, but I am helping my future self from the pain of not wasting time finding the right quote.

You can do it do. And if you don’t want to share it with the world, you can keep it in your notes or message it to yourself.

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator on Unsplash

4. Go Through Your Old Work

I love going through my old work, it makes me cringe and laugh, but I still do it. There are various reasons to do

I can see how far I have come (skills)
I wonder if I still resonant with those ideas (mind shift over the years)
It gives me a sense of accomplishment
I get new ideas to work on

Going through your old work will make you look back at your journey, remind you why you started, and then maybe push you to continue the work you’ve been procrastinating.

Improving your old work is another way to see how much you’ve grown as a writer. This works best when you have no other ideas to work on. Whenever I find myself stuck, I take back an old piece I wrote years ago and rework it.

5. Read (about) People You Admire

Reading is still the best way to learn anything. With the internet, the scope of reading hasn’t gone down but the opposite.

When you get overwhelmed with your writing and want to refill your creativity thirst, you can read articles from your favorite authors, bloggers, and creators. And you can also read about them in various public appearances and interviews.

I personally love reading anything from James Clear, FS Blog, and Darius Foroux.

Reading my favorite writers inspire me to write more and teaches a lot about their writing style.

6. Listen To A Podcast

Podcasts are a great source of learning. Whenever I listen to Tim Ferris, JRE, or Noah Kagan Presents, I get numerous ideas to write about. Podcasts can be your buddy and save you from loneliness and hopelessness.

I’d definitely think surrounding yourself with like-minded people and consuming positive and inspiring content can make you work harder and stay productive.

Pick up a few podcasts that you enjoy and listen to keep you accountable and learn new things simultaneously. Perhaps, Gary Vee can help you to the way out of procrastination if not your own self.

Lastly

I find myself mostly procrastinating on things that I find challenging and tedious. This article took me 40 minutes because I genuinely wanted to write this one; there was no resistance. If we find something we really want to write about, we may not procrastinate writing.

During days when you can’t even get yourself to work on your crazy life-changing ideas — maybe you can use this guide and find something to do while you push off writing :)