Summary

The author finds that setting deadlines, even arbitrary ones, significantly enhances their writing productivity by creating a sense of urgency.

Abstract

The article explores the author's personal experience with writing and the challenge of finding motivation. Despite enjoying writing and using it as a therapeutic outlet, the author struggles to write without a strong internal desire. They often find themselves most productive under the pressure of a deadline, such as late at night when they know they should be sleeping or right before they have to leave the house. The author has noticed a pattern where writing becomes easier when time is limited, turning the activity into a welcome distraction from less desirable tasks. To harness this productivity boost, the author has started to set self-imposed deadlines for various tasks, breaking up the day into smaller, deadline-driven blocks of time. This method has proven effective, drawing on past experiences like pulling all-nighters in university with scheduled breaks for activities like playing Mario Kart. The article suggests that for some, the pressure of a deadline can transform procrastination into productivity.

Opinions

The author believes that a sense of urgency, often provided by a deadline, is a powerful motivator for writing.
They express that the best writing comes when there is limited time, such as late at night.
The author posits that the mind can categorize writing as a chore, leading them to engage in actual chores to avoid writing.
They have found that self-imposed deadlines can be just as effective as external ones, provided they are perceived as meaningful.
The author reflects on their university days, recalling how scheduled short breaks with an activity (like Mario Kart) helped maintain motivation and productivity during long essay-writing sessions.
They suggest that productive procrastination, where writing is used to avoid another task, can be a useful strategy for those who struggle with motivation.

The Power of a Deadline

Sometimes, a ticking clock can be the best motivation

I enjoy writing. When I’ve got something I need to get off my chest, whether it’s something I’m passionate about and want to share or something I feel the need to explain, writing has always been the best medium for me. Other times, I simply find it therapeutic.

The problem is, I need to have that feeling inside me, the desire to write. This can be difficult to create artificially, which can cause problems when trying to plan in advance when I’m going to write. Just because I have the time it doesn’t mean I’ll necessarily have the motivation.

I don’t, generally, have a lot of time to write. So when I do, and can’t, it’s frustrating. I’ll spend the whole day thinking of ideas and rewriting sentences in my head, yet as soon as I sit down I find that my mind is elsewhere.

It’s often the case that I write best late at night. I’ve always put this down to some mysterious effect that sleepiness has on me, acting as a muse and curbing my inhibitions. But it’s recently occurred to me that there might be another reason: I write best at night because I know I should be sleeping.

Avoiding Chores

The other day I had a few hours free in the afternoon, so I dedicated them to writing. I started by looking at a list of ideas I’d jotted down. I sat down in front of the computer and decided to create a new document for each, carefully typing out the working titles, because that was a commitment to write them. I stared at them a while before going to make some tea, because that suddenly felt essential for progress.

After staring at a blank screen until my mug was cold and empty, I got up to put the laundry on, because I was sure it had been subconsciously distracting me (while in the kitchen I noticed the dishwasher needed to go on, too).

Over an hour later I had changed my mind over which article to start a dozen times, thought of a few more ideas and opened files for those without elaborating, done a little exercise and opened Twitter close to a thousand times. I wrote nothing.

Literally nothing. Annoyed at myself, I started playing a computer game — I’m not even a gamer, I just wanted to distract myself from my disappointment. For some reason, my mind had categorised writing as a chore, and I had been doing actual chores to avoid it.

With fifteen minutes to go before I had to leave, I was about to close down the computer when I reread one of my titles by accident. My body was positioned away from the screen, trying to leave because I knew the last thing I should be doing right now was writing — but somehow this sent my desire to do so through the roof.

My fingers have never moved so fast and my thoughts have never been so fluid. I think I managed around 700 words in the short time before I had to rush out of the house, but the crux of the story was down.

Why couldn’t I have done this two hours earlier? I could have finished the whole thing — at that rate I could have knocked out three stories! Presented with a task I’d rather not be doing, writing became the distraction and suddenly consumed me.

The thing is, this isn’t the first time it’s happened. The more I thought about it, the more I realised it’s happened time and time again.

Putting my epiphany to practical use

I’ve started setting myself deadlines. They can be arbitrary, but to work I need to be able to convince myself they’re meaningful. I find it helps to break up essential tasks — maybe iron my clothes an hour before needing to change, creating an extra artificial deadline.

If I need to make a phone call, I’ll give it a very specific time slot even if it doesn’t need one. If I need to shower before going out later, I’ll schedule it directly in the middle of a writing block — yet another additional deadline. To be meaningful, deadlines don’t need to be important in a conventional sense.

I remember in University both myself and my housemate had managed to leave a bunch of essays until the last minute — they needed to be handed in by 9am the following morning so we stayed up all night. Half asleep, we struggled with motivation until we came up with a plan: on the hour, every hour, we would meet in the living room to have a single, two-minute race of Mariokart on the SNES (don’t let anyone ever tell you that’s not a valuable use of your time).

All of the staring at my stereotypical student posters of Kurt Cobain and Homer Simpson took place in the first thirty minutes, all of the frantic typing in the last fifteen. It worked.

Productive Procrastination

Today, I have a delivery to make that I really don’t want to — writing is helping me to avoid reality. I have to leave the house in the next ten minutes but most of what you’re reading was written in the last fifteen, despite me having had over an hour to write.

There’s truth in the saying, if you need something done, ask a busy person. You just need to convince yourself your busy.

Maybe it’s just me, but if that was the case, Mariokart wouldn’t have worked for my friend, too. If you’re sat in front of the keyboard with a vast expanse of time in front of you, yet somehow you can’t write — try taking it away. Give yourself something small that needs to be done in precisely 45 minutes, or 30, and see what happens.

A ticking clock could be all the motivation you needed.