If you’re a procrastinator, it’s not too late

Procrastination isn’t always about being lazy

People who have been to my apartment know I always have bright yellow Post-It notes hanging on my bedroom wall with my monthly tasks. As I’m writing this post, I can read what’s across the room for this month:

Write at least 2 pages a day of screenplay

Write three TV show reviews

Finish reading The Lean Startup

Complete five lectures of Data Science Boot-Camp

What I have noticed over the past few years is that I tend to prioritize the more structured and methodological tasks over the more ambiguous ones. Looking at the Post-It notes right now, I can confidently say that I am making significant progress on three of the tasks in front of me but falling behind on one. Based on the list I showed you, it is clear that “Write at least 2 pages a day of screenplay” sticks out as being the most open-ended and unstructured task and the one with which I am currently having the most difficulty. That is not to say that I have not been making any progress on my screenplays. I have sometimes exceeded my monthly expectations. However, it seems that this month, for whatever reason, I need additional motivation, new tools, and a reminder of the advice and recommendations that I followed during my good writing months to push through.

Three weeks ago, while walking the abandoned streets of Soho, I came across the podcast Work Life with Adam Grant and was thrilled to see that there was an episode titled The real reason you procrastinate. I don’t usually listen to podcasts, my Spotify go-to playlist is usually Rap Caviar, but I decided to give this one a chance and see if I could learn something new about procrastination. I’m glad I did.

To give a brief background about Adam Grant, he is an organizational psychologist, popular TED speaker, New York Times bestselling author of three books, and Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven years straight. In the episode I was listening to, Grant invited Margaret Atwood, the award-winning Canadian novelist and poet best known for writing The Handmaid’s Tale, to speak about procrastination. At first, I was confused to see her name and the word procrastination appear in the same sentence. What would one of the most successful writers in history know about procrastination? It turns out she knows a lot.

Atwood claims that she is an expert on procrastination. However, she says she never turns in her manuscripts late and considers it dishonorable to miss a deadline. So, what does she mean when she calls herself a procrastinator? Atwood explains that she does not procrastinate out of laziness but does so to escape negative emotions. She says that she procrastinated for three years before writing The Handmaid’s Tale because she wanted to write a “more normal” novel and one that isn’t “too batty.” Grant further expands on the idea of escaping negative emotions with his second guest Fuschia Sirois, a United Kingdom psychologist specializing in studying procrastination. She explains that procrastination is about resisting failure. By putting complex tasks aside, ones that lean towards ambiguity, a person feels relief in the short term.

What Atwood and Sirois explained resonated with me. I paused the podcast and started thinking. When I’m enrolled in a Data Science Boot-Camp, I follow an organized set of lectures in a linear format, learn new concepts and test my knowledge by completing homework questions and checking my answers. What about writing a movie script? I can follow the Three Act Structure and stick to a word count, but there isn’t one correct method or magic formula I can use to write a movie. If I were to ask Quentin Tarantino about how he writes his films, his answer would definitely be different from Paul Schrader’s.

When making this comparison, I realized that the lack of structure involved with writing a movie stirs negative feelings. During my lousy writing months, I usually go over every scene I write dozens of times before moving to the next one. I constantly question how good the dialogue is, how developed my characters are and how meaningful the story I’m writing is. I usually write around thirty pages before dragging the script to an Archive Folder on my desktop and starting a new one. I have five unfinished scripts saved in that folder because I don’t think they are good enough.

Some might argue that writing a TV show review is also open-ended and unstructured. My response to that is that there is one key difference. When writing a review, I am critiquing someone else’s creation and not inventing something new. Evaluating someone else’s work and providing constructive criticism is easier. However, when I review my script, I will likely be my worst enemy.

After a five-minute pause, I resumed the episode in search of tools that I could use to get me out of my procrastination slump. The podcast recommendations complemented the ones I followed in the past and expanded my understanding of the psychology behind them. They also served as a timely reminder about the importance of sticking to these strategies. I’m highlighting the two main approaches that have worked for me below.

Don’t judge your work before producing it

In the podcast, Grant and Atwood explain that not judging your work before producing it and refraining from criticizing yourself while creating it are two important ways to fight procrastination. I started following this advice after taking a screenwriting workshop with Jacob Krueger, an award-winning screenwriter and founder of the Jacob Krueger studio in New York. In this workshop, Krueger encouraged me to think of the first draft as the “Me Draft” and write down whatever came to mind. It didn’t matter whether the “Me Draft” made sense to anyone else. As long as I was able to understand it, then it was good enough.

The “Me Draft,” whether you’re writing a movie script, producing music, or creating a business plan, allows you to turn all your unfiltered thoughts into tangible products. Because you’re not judging yourself while creating this draft, you’re stopping negative thoughts such as “Is this good enough?”, “I think someone else created something like this before,” and “I’m not an expert on this topic, so there’s no way this will work” from invading your mind and hindering your progress. Once you complete the “Me Draft,” you will have the foundation on which you can build the more polished subsequent drafts. This strategy was crucial to my good writing months, and I think it’s time I go back and follow it to get over my current period of procrastination.

Let your “Should Self” outsmart your “Want Self”

Grant describes a person as having two selves, the “Want Self” and the “Should Self.” He introduces the “Want Self” as the one that runs on emotions and looks for pleasure in the short term. This includes engaging in activities like scrolling on Instagram, FaceTiming a friend, and playing Warzone on your PS4. As for the “Should Self,” he says it is the smarter one and is the one more concerned with doing the right thing in the long term. His strategy here is to allow the “Should Self” to outwit the “Want Self” by planning tasks ahead of time and removing temptations.

This is another strategy that I also started following after taking Krueger’s screenwriting workshop. Krueger encouraged me to set a goal and stick to it at all costs. This can be a daily or weekly target, such as Complete 2 pages a day or Write daily for 1 hour non-stop. In my case, I started by setting a goal of completing three pages daily and not allowing myself to get off my chair. At first, this wasn’t easy. I was trying so hard to write freely without going back and re-reading every line twenty times. Also, even though I put my phone on Airplane-mode, I had the urge to leave my chair and check my texts, work email, and Instagram. Luckily, I resisted these temptations and started seeing progress after a couple of days. Writing two pages a day became more manageable, and I could expand my daily target incrementally.

This strategy only worked because I stuck to it and did not give in to the distractions around me. Time and effort are needed to build this discipline and rewire the brain to focus on one task and avoid other temptations. No matter what it takes, don’t reach out to your phone, don’t turn on your TV, and don’t get snacks from your fridge. Explaining this strategy right now reminds me of Lebron James’s recent saying in a TV advertisement for the Calm meditation app. He says:

“The mind is like a muscle, the more you train it the stronger it becomes. While the greats master the body, the greatest master the mind”

Even though my examples are primarily related to writing, you can use the strategies for any goal. However, it does take a lot of time and effort to get over procrastination, and you will inevitably fall into the trap of doing it now and then, the same way I am procrastinating with my writing this month. I find it helpful to constantly ask myself this motivational question: If someone else could stop procrastinating and achieve their target, why can’t I?