How Do You Cure Procrastination?
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@Three-Eyed-Crow said:
@Sundown said:
I don't know about this. I think the divide exists, at least for me, but I don't think it's "art" versus "work." I think it's in how we approach our "art" versus how we approach out "work." I started my career as a newspaper reporter, then moved into audit investigation (where I had to write 10-page monster narrative reports on financial fraud), and I'm in technical writing now. None of this is strictly narrative (even journalism always felt to me a lot like story assembly) and I could always bang out the actual work pretty quickly (getting the information for it was always the time consuming thing, but I got a charge out of actually writing the stuff, particularly on deadline).It's much harder for me to sit down and get my shit together to write creatively, at least in terms of narrative fiction (I waste plenty of time MU*ing). Part of this is because, after doing this shit for 8-hours a day, writing even more fun narrative stuff feels like more grind, and I want to do other things. But it's not just that.
Yeah, RP can be both useful and a drain. It can invigorate me creatively, but it can also become a stupid timesink where I feel like I've been doing something creative but I haven't accomplished anything productive. So it's something to be careful about.
I think the primary difference for me is motivation, and I don't just mean monetarily. Having deadlines that will fuck something up if I miss them, helps me. Having a manager yell at me if I'm not turning around something quick enough, helps me. This has to be done, and it has to be done now and fixed with your editor later if it's not perfect, and I can't sit around and polish it and play with it until it's just a thing nobody but me will ever see.
I essentially need to create consequences for myself for not doing shit. Which is how you treat your art like work (I agree this is what you need to do), it's just really, really hard without a yell-y boss supplying the need to get shit done.
This is partly why I'm talking about building inspiration, in the creative sense. In the deadline-driven work sense, for me it's about setting up manageable goals. I'm not going to write a book; instead I'll write this short story with clearly outlined goals for it. I'm not going to create an album of music, instead I'll work on little bits and pieces until a song comes up. Manageable goals will gradually stretch my ability, so I'll be able to plan out a book eventually.
I get you, it's hard to self-motivate when you have no one to answer to but yourself. As a freelancer, it's just something you either work out, or freelancing is not for you.
Maybe you just don't have the energy to push yourself hard after you've been pushed hard at work all day. Realistically, you need some rest.
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I don't think procrastination can be cured so much as worked through. For me the only the only thing that helps is discipline of putting time in, even if I'm not thrilled with the results.
For writing, it's shrugging off the inner editor and just writing for a block of time, and worrying about editing later. For housework it's telling the voice of my mother inside my head to STFU bitch, and just put the time in. When I chaired a nonprofit organization (which no one who truly knows me would have believed me to be capable of in a million years, especially the one I inherited which was so fucking noncompliant as far as legal requirements it was terrifying, and because of Reasons it needed to be cleaned up right away and that got dropped in my lap) I had to force myself to dedicate 6 hours a week, timed and organized, to work on stuff from the time the timer went on until the signal and then just walk away from it, as long as it wasn't something like finishing a web form or something like that). When I wanted to improve my pottery skillz, I had to learn to be okay with once I fucked something up instead of trying to rescue or screeching internally to just cut it off, put it on the to be wedged pile, and immediately keep going with the next lump, until class was over.
I wasted a lot of time thinking that I needed to be in the right mindset at the right time in order for something to be worth doing. For me and my very distracted/procrastinating personality that will not come unless I just start on it and keep going (preferably in some sort of routine, though my routines seldom look like other people's). It's not sexy, but it's the only thing that gets me through projects and improves my skills.
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@Sundown That's what I was talking about. Be proactive and persistent about motivation/inspiration as much as with skills as if it was to pay the bills.
I've seen many artists who "like to draw", and think that means they have a vocation, or even the skills to be a pro.
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Apropos, I just stumbled upon this:
Cruel, but helpful.
