I’ve been neglecting my website again. But at the beginning of the new year, I swore I would change my ways and put in the time and effort to at least resurrecting my blog. I made to-do lists, bought a very cool planner to keep me organized and put together a detailed spreadsheet of steps for accomplishing goals by the year’s end. And then I found a bunch of others ways to keep myself too busy to even take one small step toward achieving anything I’d actually set out to do. Good old procrastination strikes again!
I finally took the Nike approach and decided to just do it… to just sit down and start typing anything that came to mind. Instead I ended up distracting myself with research about procrastination.
I read some stories about great procrastinators throughout history; a favorite is the one about Victor Hugo’s method behind writing The Hunchback of Notre Dame … he told his staff to hide all his clothing, forcing him to stay indoors with no distractions from his writing. That kind of tactic isn’t going to work for me, especially with so many mirrors in my house, but I did look for ways to overcome my procrastination habit.
“Procrastination rarely involves doing nothing, but it does involve doing the wrong thing for that moment.” – Sarah Stodola
According to accountability coaches Ali Schiller and Marissa Boisvert, there are four types of procrastinators:
- The performer who says, “I work well under pressure”
- The self-deprecator who says, “I am so lazy right now”
- The overbooker who says, “I’m so busy”
- The novelty seeker who says, “I just had the best idea!”
If you’re like me, you probably identify a little with all four. In their article, Ali and Marissa offer helpful solutions for each of the four types to overcome the challenge of procrastination. I was excited to try their suggestions, but I wasn’t done Googling.
After reading about fascinating theories like Time Inconsistency and behaviors like Akrasia, I made some notes and felt recharged about tackling my blog post. But… I came up blank. Well, not really “blank,” my brain was showing me highlights of new thoughts and old memories at a super high-speed. I needed to clear my mind, and the best way to do that is to create something.
Being in the flow of creativity helps me escape overthinking and takes me to a space where I can get peacefully lost in my craft. I can slow down, let my brain take a little snooze and allow inspiration to come from within. I have many outlets for creative expression, but my absolute favorite is using my Nikon to take photos, editing the pictures in Photoshop, selecting music from Storyblocks and putting it all together in the Filmora to create a video. So I chose some moments spent over the last year watching animals, butterflies, birds, flowers, sunsets and moonrises through my camera and found a song with the perfect vibe to create this video showcasing what I love to do…
My attempt to plan out the next year of my life got me nowhere. I took no steps, made no progress and spiraled into overwhelm. When I put those plans aside and allowed myself to act on the creative urge flowing through me, I felt more than just immediate gratification. I felt like I was taking steps and I wasmaking progress toward my future goals… and in the end, I had something to write about.