Meg Dowell Writes

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12 Unexpected Reasons You Keep Procrastinating

1. Distractions that don’t really feel like distractions.

2. You have yet to master the art of an effective “writing break.”

3. You have commitment issues. (Sorry!)

4. You work better under pressure (great!) but take it a little bit too far.

5. You’re not sitting down to create at your peak productivity intervals.

6. You’re unable to decide which project to work on so you don’t work on any of them.

7. You’re afraid you’ll create something imperfect.

8. You’ve been (wrongfully) taught mistakes in writing are bad.

9. You keep trying to tackle big projects all in one go. Projects are made of very small pieces.

10. You’re focusing too much on the future (“have written”) and not enough on the present (“am writing”).

11. You keep thinking writing will somehow get easier. It does not! You just get better at it.

12. You’re still learning patience. These things take time. Write a little every day and you will get it done.

Meg is the creator of Novelty Revisions, dedicated to helping writers put their ideas into words. She is a staff writer with The Cheat Sheet, a freelance editor and writer, and a 10-time NaNoWriMo winner. Follow Meg on Twitter for tweets about writing, food and nerdy things.

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Responses

  1. Obinna Anyaibe Avatar
    Obinna Anyaibe

    The seventh reason is what I’m guilty of. I’m obsessed with perfectionism and it’s killing my blog.

    Reply
    1. Meg Dowell Avatar
      Meg Dowell

      In my experience, the longer you stick with something, the less you worry about it being perfect. With a blog, you get to the point where you know what works, you know the formula, you know your audience. Blogs are not meant to be perfect, they are living works in progress! That’s how I see them anyway. People are very forgiving of imperfection in this space, at least from what I’ve seen. I suppose it depends on your niche…

      Reply
  2. Obinna Anyaibe Avatar
    Obinna Anyaibe

    I agree with you. The people in this space are forgiving of imperfection and are very supportive, too. Maybe I’m only thinking this way because I haven’t been blogging for too long.

    Thank you for getting back to me, Meg! This post is an eye-opener.

    Reply
    1. Meg Dowell Avatar
      Meg Dowell

      That’s probably one of the most frustrating things about blogging: it takes a long time to build up a community. It probably took me 5 years of “experimenting” to figure out who I was targeting and how to write things they could relate to/learn from. My best advice for beginners is to just stick with it. For a long time, it feels like no one is listening and you’re just sending posts out into nothingness. Don’t give up!

      Reply
  3. Don Massenzio Avatar
    Don Massenzio

    Reblogged this on Author Don Massenzio and commented:
    Check out this great post from the Novelty Revisions blog with 12 Unexpected Reasons You Keep Procrastinating

    Reply

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