What I’m still reading: Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (almost finished)
What’s on the iPod: Winter Winds by Mumford & Sons
I have a post up over at About Freelance Writing. If you get a chance, give Anne some traffic and leave some comment love.
I’m about to admit something I can hardly believe myself. Well, I have to believe it – I live it. I’m a bit of a procrastinator. It’s true. Not with everything, but with articles in particular, I put things off until I’m in that hurry-up-and-get-it-done stage. I can’t understand it. I sweat deadlines like they’re mini childbirths. But if I’m given a long, luxurious deadline that offers me weeks instead of days, you can almost bet on the fact I’ll be handing it in a day or two before the due date, if not directly on it.
My current project is no exception. I have until January 1st. I know I won’t have time to get it done during the holidays. Yet I’ve puttered with it, toyed with it, avoided it for five days now. Yesterday I put the first serious time into it, knowing if I don’t I’ll spend the entire holiday sweating about it. I have 560 words. I need 1,200. Just 640 more words. They’re all there. I’m just not motivated by anything pressing. And let’s toss in a holiday season and kids coming home, shall we? Who can stay motivated under those conditions?
Today is D Day for it. If I don’t get it done (in my mind, anyway), there will be no time to get it done by the deadline. That is my motivation, and you bet it will get me moving. I don’t miss deadlines. Ever. I can’t ever remember missing one, though I’m sure it may have happened.
I entertained the idea of dragging a laptop with me on the train, but I can’t listen to the interviews on the train, nor can I look up facts with limited/no Internet access. Nope. Today is it.
Are you a procrastinator? What projects make you drag your feet a little? How do you motivate yourself?
Most of you aren’t working steadily this month. Those who are, how are you staying focused?
15 responses to “Procrastination and the Freelancer”
I have a variety of projects I'm doing for one client, and he pays very promptly. I stay focused because I want to be able to invoice everything by early next week and have check in hand before the 31st. The prospect of $X with X days is a great motivator for me … especially with all the Christmas bills.
I need one of those clients too, Eileen. Right now, I have exactly that – one. Problem is their work has slowed this month.
January – I can't wait for January. 🙂
It depends on the project. Although, even if I finish a project early, I don't turn it in more than a day or two before deadline, or the clients start assuming a shorter turnaround time, and that's not always possible.
I"m battling with the realization that there are certain types of projects I no longer want to take on, even when the clients are perfectly nice.
Usually, if I procrastinate, there's something going on that's more about the bigger, personal picture than that individual project.
I'm really bad about procrastinating too. I've worked at newspapers too long and I'm too used to working on very tight deadline. Without that pressure, I'm not motivated. Like you, though, I don't turn in assignments late. I just need the deadline pressure to get going!
My great motivator is deciding what else I want to do. For example, Friday is my karaoke night. So if I don't want to be working on the weekend, I'd better get my work done on Friday before karaoke time!
Devon, you need to charge me for therapy. 🙂 It's true. I love writing articles, but I'm drawn elsewhere these days. I'm like a magpie anyway, so it was bound to happen.
Ashley, I wouldn't have figured you for a karaoke queen! 🙂
oh girl, I can get down on some Shania Twain 🙂
You perfectly described me, Lori! On rare occasions, I'll get a project in early. But most often, I dither until I HAVE to write.
I think I'm a little bored and burned out. So any free time I have away from work, I leap at it. Yet, I can't figure out how to get excited about work again–and I have to do it for many more years, so I'd better find a way!
Hi. My name is Cathy and I am a procrastinator.
Sometimes I really beat myself up about it. Like Devon, I know there is something more going on that is causing the procrastination.
And, like Ashley, after 30+ years in Corporate and ridiculous work weeks, I am simply not interested in working myself to death. Of course, that doesn't explain why I procrastinate a reasonable workload.
I think what it all boils down to (for me) is I want to write fiction and my procrastination on the "work stuff" blocks me from failing at my dream.
How's that for a shrink-wrapped moment? 🙂
"I'm not dreamin', or stupid, I think I been hit by cupid…"
Go get 'em, Ashley. 🙂
Sounds to me like it's time to look for different projects, Gabriella. Maybe a new area altogether? And that's part of my issue – I have two personal projects about to hit prime time, and they're going to take me in a new, more exciting direction. The regular stuff just isn't cutting it now.
Cathy, Devon often says it – put your own writing FIRST in your day. Why not? We can always catch up with client work, even if we spend an hour on ourselves. First 1,000 words of the day are all yours. 🙂
Guilty as charged. The Deadline is my crucible. Always been that way, don't suspect it's going to change. But I make it work, and I've learned not to waste a lot of mental energy on berating myself about it. At the risk of sounding like a professional athlete in a post-game press conference, "It is what it is."
By the way, I was so happy to see you were listening to Great Big Sea yesterday. Love those guys!
They're great, Jake! I didn't realize until I heard a few people saying it.
That's pretty verbose for a post-game press conference. Usually, it's more like "Well, we knew going in it would be tough to beat these guys, but we brought our game." Or "They played a better game, what can I say?"
We need to be writing these comments for them. A new market, perhaps? LOL
When another writer friend and I discussed this several years ago I realized I work best with 2 week deadlines. Give me a month and I'll dilly dally around the writing (and interviewing). My friend traced her procrastination to college when she'd stay up all night knocking out a story for her creative writing class.
We realized people like us need that adrenaline rush to really ignite the creative flame. The only times I've come close to writer's block (knock on wood) is when there wasn't a deadline looming.
This month I've been working on one short article and a few smaller projects (including the Santa letters, which are long since done), and I'm trying to get more ideas sent out before taking the rest of the year off. I turned down two articles from the same client(both due by year's end) for two reasons: 1) They haven't yet paid me for work published in November and December; 2) I didn't want to do 15-20 interviews on top of my holiday commitments. It's the worst time of year for scheduling interviews, and one of the articles would have been on the floral industry. Ha!
That's me! I do it all the time, particularly magazine work. I'll take a two week lead time and pare it down to three hours, flip frantically through my notes (which were hand-written two weeks ago, so god knows what this scribble means!) and crank out a 700-word piece with seconds to spare ("If I can't write 700 words in three hours I don't deserve to do this job," I somehow rationalize. "Where's my chocolate!?!") I had a rehearsal for a play reading on a Sunday night, with the reading on Monday. When did I finish the script? Sunday afternoon.
LOL! Joseph, you're in a lot of good company. 🙂
Paula, guess who has to interview someone next week? (My hand is up.) Wish me luck. 🙂
I'm a horrible procrastinator if it's something I don't want to do, like folding or putting away laundry. I know it will be so much easier to just do it load by load, but I put it off until I have piles upon piles and it takes me hours to complete what would have taken 15 minutes…