Time to Write

A Tool for Procrastinators Only

I’m sure you’ve heard that the way to tackle a big task is to turn it into small chunks. Good advice but I’ve found sometimes I do one or two of the small chunks, get distracted, and lose track of the bigger task. When I’ve confessed this, quite a few people have said they have the same issue. If that’s you, too, I recommend a simple little tool I’ve devised that I call a Task Map.

A Task Map is just a simple diagram of the smaller chunks in the order in which I think they need to be done.

The example pictured here is a breakdown of the steps I need to do in order to launch a feature on TikTok. As you can see, I’m starting from zero; I don’t even know the exact dimensions the graphics should have or the best format for the audio. I also need to find out the best frequency of posting (consistent with what I can realistically produce), and some tips on how to attract followers.

As reflected in the next step, I plan to produce the first dozen posts for launch day (they’re very short). I also want to have the related print-on-demand merchandise ready on a site like Etsy in the unlikely event of the site arousing a lot of interest right away. I also want to get feedback from some more experienced people, do any final pre-launch prep I’ve found out about in the meantime, and then launch. I put a check mark in each circle as I complete that step.

Of course, you don’t need to draw it, it could just be a simple list, but I am visually oriented and find this format stands out more and is less likely to get buried on my desk.

I haven’t done it on this map, but you may want to add deadlines for each step. Sometimes it turns out that something I’ve got down as one step needs to be broken down into smaller steps, leading to another map.

When I get to the end of the map, it's time to draw another one for the next part of the process. In this case, that would be continuing to post, responding to feedback, improving the posts, and perhaps creating additional merchandise. If that sells, there may even eventually be a step that reads, “Spend the income on something nice!”

 

If procrastination is an issue for you, give this a try and let me know how you get on, either in the comments or at [email protected].

A better way to decide what to commit to

Do you ever agree to do something or go somewhere in the future, only to find that when the time arrives to do it you wish you hadn’t?

Yeah, me, too, but the other day I found a good tip for a better way to decide yes or no in that situation:

Pretend that it’s happening tomorrow. Would you still say yes?

When we look toward some future date, it’s easy to assume on that day we’ll have more time, or that it will be a good time to attend a lecture on some topic in which we have a vague interest.

Pretending it’s tomorrow puts us more in touch with reality—if that lecture isn’t compelling enough to attend tomorrow, the odds are it won’t be compelling enough three weeks from now.

A mantra for when you're depressed (or even when you're not)

I'm always on the lookout for tips that can help those of us who suffer from clinical depression--or just bouts of lack of motivation.

One I was reminded of recently is the mantra, "Just do one thing."

In better times, the one thing might be writing a few pages, or researching a story, or contacting an agent. 

In harder times, it can be as simple as getting out of bed.

Focusing on a small chunk of what needs to be done usually creates momentum. Even when it doesn't, at least that one thing will have been done. 

If it may be helpful to you, keep "Do just one thing" in mind. Even better, jot it on a note that's visible by your desk or by your bed. 

If it's not you but someone in your life you care about who has this issue, help them to identify one thing and praise them for doing it rather than focusing on all the things they're not doing.

Most likely, they're doing their best.

 

How to Give Yourself a Procrastination Allowance

Once we start to procrastinate, we tend to keep procrastinating.

A common refrain is, "I don't have much time left today to work on that task, so I'll make a fresh start tomorrow."

Of course, tomorrow we may find ourselves saying the same thing, and on and on.

Instead, try giving yourself a procrastination allowance: a certain amount of time you will avoid doing that task, after which you will make a start.

For instance, if you plan to work on writing a report between nine and eleven AM, give yourself a procrastination allowance of fifteen minutes per hour. Use it for anything you want--looking at Youtube videos, checking the news, or staring into space.

You would start the first hour by procrastinating between nine and nine-fifteen. Set a timer to go off when the 15 minutes are up, then get to work.

At 10 you get another 15 minutes to goof off or do a more pleasant task. Again, use the timer so you won't spend more than your allowed time.

Idealists may say, "Wait a minute--that means I'm wasting 30 minutes every two hours!" That's true. But isn't that better than wasting the whole two hours?

The Power of Deadlines

Sometimes when I'm supposed to be doing something, I find I'm drawn to doing something else--usually something easier and less important. Entrepreneur and writer Peter Gasca discussed a similar problem in an interview on Inc.com:

"I am mostly too organized, bordering on O.C.D., and have a mild case of Adult Attention Deficit Disorder (self-diagnosed). This often gets me trapped in endless loops of being productive and getting meaningless things done. I have found this causes creativity paralysis, which is the inability to start a creative endeavor for fear of not being able to complete it.

I have mostly overcome this by engaging in projects that have deadlines, or giving myself deadlines, which forces me to start and complete a task, even if at the last minute."

He has a way of looking at deadlines that I like:

"I have come to understand that by having deadlines, artificial or real, my mind turns off the ‘input’ process and switches to ‘output,’ which forces me to be deliberate about a task in front of me."

That speaks to the danger of continuing to research the topic or to watch lots of videos and read lots of articles because, who knows, maybe there'll be something useful in them. Those are all 'input.' With a deadline, it's easier to be aware of when to throw that switch to 'output.'

(You may also be interested in the productivity techniques in my book, Focus: Use the Power of Targeted Thinking to Get More Done. It's published by Nicholas Brealey and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.)

 

Writing Excuses Demolished: "I don't have time."

One of the most common reasons that comes up when people say they want to write but they aren't is "I don't have time."

Really? Do you watch TV, go to the movies, use social media? I’m not saying you have to eliminate these, but you could cut back on them and other things that take up your time in order to carve out at least a few hours every week for writing. For instance, is it more important to know who's dancing with the stars or getting chucked out of the baking competition, or writing your script or novel?

Many novels have been written in moments stolen from lunch hours and work breaks, or early mornings or late nights. One friend of mine took a job working at a pizza parlor because during the slow hours between lunch and dinner he had the chance to work on his novel. His supervisor didn’t care, as long as the customers who came in were tended to.

What are the odd moments you could use—if not to actually write, maybe to brainstorm in order to flesh out your characters or plot?

What's one thing that you can stop doing and use that time to write? 

You DO have time to write!

There’s no question about it, even though technology was supposed to make life easier and give us more time, the demands on us are escalating.

Making the time to do something that is important to you, like writing the screenplay or novel you’ve been thinking about for ages, is a bigger challenge than ever…but it IS possible.

Here are three ways to help you get started:

Consciously decide what you are NOT going to do anymore.

You’re already doing something every hour of the day. There’s no way to turn a day into 25 hours just because you want to now spend an hour a day writing.

That means you have to decide what it is you do now for an hour a day that you will stop doing.

Some likely candidates are watching TV, surfing the web, housework, errands, laundry, and hanging out with people out of habit rather than because you enjoy it. You may be thinking, “Wait--the laundry has to be done, so do errands! That brings us to strategy number two:

Find ways to delegate some of the things you are doing now.

• Can your spouse or kids take over some of the chores you are doing now?
  
  
• Can you hire a high school or college student to run errands for a you a few hours on the weekend?
  
  
• Can you hire somebody online? (There’s a great site at www.Fiverr.com that lists what people will do for $5 (or more). There’s a UK version, Fivesquid.com, and you can use either one. There is an amazing variety of services on offer. For instance, I’ve used it recently to get somebody to transcribe 10 minutes of an audio interview recording and to create original music for the introduction to a podcast I’m planning.

Barter or exchange services

For example, if you and your neighbor both have kids, you might swap babysitting services to give each of you a free afternoon. 

The bottom line

At the end of your life, do you want to think back and say, “Well, I never got around to writing the stories I was passionate about, but my kitchen sure was spotless!”? Or, “I could have written a script that would have had an impact on the world, but then again going bowling with the gang from work every Friday night was fun even though George from HR got on my nerves and my feet always hurt from wearing those stupid bowling shoes”?

The time to start doing something about your dream is now, and you CAN make the time to make it come true.

How to Schedule Procrastination

Despite being aware of many productivity techniques, I still struggle sometimes with procrastination. Here's a little technique I've found helpful when I've been avoiding a simple task for some reason: Schedule procrastination by scheduling the task.

Rather than saying, "I'll do this task today," which leaves me free to move it down the to-do list until it's too late, I say, "I'll do this task at 3 pm." 

It may seem like I'm just scheduling the task, but I'm also scheduling procrastination at the same time. Between whenever I start work and 3 pm, I can be guilt-free about not doing that task.

To make it more likely that I'll stick to the plan, I combine this with micro-chunking by saying, "I'll do this task starting at 3 pm and ending at 3:15 pm."

I can stand just about anything for 15 minutes, and once I get going on the task I may well just continue, but knowing I don't have to makes a difference.

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For more great tips, get my book, "Focus: how to use the power of targeted thinking," published by Pearson and available from Amazon or your other favorite bookseller.

 

The danger of focusing on "what if's"

As writers, it's natural for us to focus on "what if's":

• what if nobody wants to buy what we write?
• what if it's not good enough?
• what if I should have been writing that other thing instead?
• what if I don't figure out the ending? 

I'm sure you can think of some more!

Of course sometimes we come up with "what if's" that are more fun: "What if it's a best-seller? What if it makes me a LOT of money? What if it turns out as well as I hope it will?"

If we spend too much time on either (or both) what if's, it can hold us back, according to professors and co-authors Bill Burnett and Dave Evans in this video.

 

Do you follow the 5-hour rule for improving your writing or other skill?

The five-hour rule refers to spending at least five hours a week on improving your skill, and it's something practiced by Warren Buffett, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates and other very successful people, according to an article at inc.com. 

The article's author, Michael Simmons, says he found that these leaders usually spent those five hours doing three things:

    1. Reading. Oprah's dedication to reading is well known, and Simmons says entrepreneur Mark Cuban spends three hours a day reading.

    2. Reflecting. This can take the form of meditation, brainstorming alone or with others, journaling, focusing on a particular issue while taking a walk, etc.

     3. Experimenting. Simmons traces this back to Ben Franklin, who famously listed the qualities he wanted to exhibit and tracked his success daily. A modern example might be Richard Branson, who starts lots of businesses and quickly drops the ones that don't work out.

These days the unglamorous task of improving your skills, which often is not a lot of fun, tends to be overshadowed by stories of very young entrepreneurs and writers and artists who have huge success right away.

Unfortunately, for me and maybe for you it's too late to be a young genius, and I have to face the fact that i'm not even a middle-age genius. So continuing to try to improve is what's left. I'd better get started on this week's five hours...

PS: How to make sure you do it: I've found that the only way I consistently spend time on these kinds of tasks is to keep track of them day by day. You can do this on your calendar or whichever simple way works best for you. 

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Is Your Time Really in Short Supply?

We all have more to do than we have time to do it, right?

An article in the New York Times by Laura Vanderkam suggests maybe we need to re-think our attitude toward time. 

She spent a full year noting how she uses her time in half-hour blocks. Even though she has four children under the age of 8 and a career, her conclusion was, "the stories I told myself about where my time went weren't always true. The hour-by-hour rhythm of my life was not quite as hectic as I thought."

This is in line with studies that show we tend to overestimate how much time we spend working. In one case, people estimated they were working 75 hours a week but actually it was 50.

Before she analyzed her data, Vanderkam thought she probably was working 45 to 50 hours a week; in fact, she averaged 40.

She suggests tracking your time for at least a week to get a more accurate picture of how you're actually using your hours. It might show that you're getting more sleep than you think, or that you are not working as much as you think--it or could reveal the opposite. Either way, it might suggest some adjustments or at least make you feel less frazzled.

One thing is certain: everybody's time runs out.

It reminds me of the line from Shakespeare's Richard II: "I have wasted time, now time doth waste me."

But what constitutes wasting time?

Looking out the window and daydreaming, or not looking out of the window and daydreaming?

Writing a book that may never get published, or not writing a book just because it may never get published?

Going out with your friend for a coffee or a beer--or not going out with your friend for a coffee or a beer? 

Only you have the answer.

 

The unsexy part of creativity

What's sexy is new ideas, breakthroughs, innovation. This paragraph from Farnam Street Brain Food newsletter reminded me that maintenance matters, too:

Capitalism excels at innovation but is failing at maintenance, and for most lives it is maintenance that matters more — "We overvalue innovation; we undervalue the routine work that keeps the built world going. Innovation is “only a small piece of what happens with technology”. Most of what happens is repair and maintenance when innovation becomes infrastructure. Just as we celebrate innovators, so we should celebrate maintainers, “those individuals whose work keeps ordinary existence going rather than introducing novel things.”"

I think this applies to individuals as well as to society as a whole. For instance, there are lots of little things you need to do in order to maintain a writing practice, and they're not sexy or new. They include keeping good records, keeping up with what's happening in the field, getting enough sleep, exercising, and remembering to stand up and move every hour or so.

It also applies to continuing to write when you get to the hard parts, avoiding letting your inner critic stop you, and finishing and rewriting what you already have instead of moving on the more appealing choice of starting something new.

We'll never win a prize for doing any of those, but they help pave the way for the possibility that we will create something good.

This Google Calendar function can help you stay on course

It's always a good idea to block out time on your calendar for appointments with yourself to be sure that you are working on the things that are important to you, not just the ones that are urgent. Now there’s a way to automate that process.

Google recently announced a new feature for their Google Calendar. It’s called Goals, and it lets you tell Google Calendar to fill in unallocated hours with goals that you might otherwise forget or keep pushing into the background. Examples include exercising, learning a language, or reading more.

Here’s a YouTube video with more information: https://youtu.be/qnZZInDyrZo

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Why you should procrastinate (a little)

Can procrastination be a virtue for creativity?

Apparently it can, in moderation.

In a TED talk, organizational psychologist Adam Grant says a study showed that people who rush into doing things and people who wait until the last minute both have fewer innovative ideas than those who procrastinate for a little while but then get to work.

The period of moderate procrastination allows people to let the challenge or the task marinate for a bit, and often that leads to new ideas.

By the way, it was news to me that there are people who can’t wait to get started on an essay or report or anything else with a deadline. I don’t think I’ve ever met one. You can guess which camp I’m in (and I bet you’re in the same one).

He also points out that the first-mover advantage is mostly a myth.

Generally, you’re better off being an “improver”—one who lets somebody else pioneer and educate the customer, and then comes up with something similar but better. He cites the statistic that in business, first movers have a 47% failure rate, whereas for improvers it’s only 8%.

If you tend to rush to start or wait until the last possible moment, consider trying the middle path and see whether you get better results. I’m planning to try it myself…in a little while.

The "Future Self" dilemma

This is one of those, "Is it just me?" quandaries, where you wonder whether what you're experiencing is universal, or personal and probably you'll just embarrass yourself by mentioning it. I'm talking about how disappointing my Future Self often turns out to be when he turns into my Present Self.

Here's an example. I belong to a lot of MeetUp groups. If you haven't heard of those, check out MeetUp.com, and you'll find hundreds, probably thousands, of groups of people interested in specific topics and activities, like photography, art, cooking and just about every other subject you can imagine. 

I'll see something interesting scheduled for a week from now, like an interesting talk or a visit to a gallery or a mini-workshop.

I imagine my Future Self going to the event, meeting people, enjoying the activity.

My Future Self is a gregarious, fine fellow, a man of the world who pursues many interests. I sign him up for the event and we are both happy.

When it's time to go to the event, my Future Self has turned into my Present Self, and something has definitely gone wrong in the interim.

My future self is unconcerned with trivial details like the weather. My Present Self looks out the window and sees that it's drizzling and thinks, 'Do I really want to go out? '

Whereas my Future Self was certain he would meet interesting new people, my Present Self remembers that time I went to an event and got buttonholed for thirty minutes by The World's Most Boring Man Who Also Had Bad Breath.

My Future Self didn't bother with the details of how he would get to the venue. My Present Self looks at the Underground map and sees he'd have to change twice and walk twenty minutes.

My Present Self decides to stay home and Get Things Done. He can envision the short-term Future Self catching up on paperwork, clearing up the home office, getting a start on organizing those documents for the tax return. Yes, we have made the right decision and the Future Self will get to work right after dinner!

After dinner, the former Future Self notices that one of our favorite movies is starting on BBC2. When the movie ends he decides it's too late to get started on any work, it'll be best to leave it for tomorrow.

My Future Self was going to finish this post with a brilliant solution to this problem, but once again he's let us down.

I'm pretty sure he'll come up with it tomorrow.