10 Tips to Defeat Procrastination

Is procrastination stealing your writing time? Do you find you spend more time procrastinating then writing? Are you putting off a big project? Or several small ones?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, then read on for ten tips to defeat procrastination.

1. Break your work down into smaller chunks. Instead of trying to write a query letter in one day, work on writing one paragraph today. The add another paragraph tomorrow.

2. Schedule your writing time. Just like you’d mark an hour off your calendar for your dentist’s appointment, mark off an hour each for your writing.

3. If you don’t have time to write, take a hard look at your weekly to do list. Start by writing down everything you do in a week and ask yourself questions like what's most important? What's least important? What can wait until next week?

4. Accept "good enough". Procrastinators tend to be perfectionists as well. Don't put something off just because you fear it won't be perfect.

5. Ask for help. It's important to ask for help when you can't handle it all. Perhaps the real reason you procrastinate is because you're overwhelmed.

6. Be flexible.

7. Set a deadline and tell someone else. When we break a promise to ourselves, we can usually shrug it off. Not so with others.

8. Don’t stop to research. Put your research questions in parenthesis and keep going. It’s too easy to get distracted while researching and before you know it, the afternoon has passed and you haven’t accomplished much.

9. Track your work. Whether in an excel sheet or a blank notebook. When you wake up every day, remind yourself you need to add an entry.

10. Set a timer for twenty minutes. Tell yourself that after twenty minutes, you can do anything else. Chances are after the time is up, you’ll be so into your writing, you won’t want to stop!

Every writer faces the battle against procrastination. What separates writers from wannabe writers is a simple choice—to write anyway. So go on, write anyway!