The Real Cause of Procrastination - and What You Can Do About It

Photo by Karim MANJRA on Unsplash

Most writers procrastinate at some point or other. (I’m tempted to say all writers, but I try to stay away from absolutes). 

Sometimes we go a day or two. Or weeks, or months, without writing. The longer we procrastinate, the harder it is to get back into it. We’ve not only lost the spark, we’re not even sure where to start. 

We beat ourselves up. We promise we will definitely, for sure, write tomorrow. 

Tomorrow comes, and then… either no writing happens, or we force ourselves to sit down and put something on the page. We feel good about that, and it may be enough to keep us going for a while, but soon willpower alone falls short. 

“What is the matter with me?” you may wonder. “I want to write, don’t I? What can’t I just… do it?”

You are not lazy or undisciplined. You simply don’t understand the root cause of your procrastination. Until you do, and deal with it, you will always feel like writing is a “should” rather than a “get to.” And you will always struggle with motivation to do it.

Emotion is the real cause. 

Our brains run on emotion. Sometimes the emotion is so unconscious we don’t understand the resulting behavior (such as procrastination). In order to move beyond procrastination, you need to figure out the emotion behind it. Fear? Overwhelm? Boredom? Lack of meaning? 

Then you can address it. When the emotional cost drops, so does the threshold of avoidance. 

We often procrastinate on things that are very important to us, or take a lot of mental effort, or have an uncertain reward outcome. 

So, you need to make it easier for your brain to say yes. 

The brain wants easy. If something feels too threatening, or difficult, or boring, avoidance ensues. Your brain is simply trying to protect you from negative emotions. Thank you, brain! Of course, when you avoid something you know you should be doing, it ends up generating more negative emotions… which increases the avoidance. 

So ask yourself: what emotion are you avoiding, when you are avoiding writing? 

Is it fear? Name the specific fear(s). Are you anxious about not being good enough? About not knowing what comes next in your story? 

Are you bored with the project? What makes it boring? 

Are you overwhelmed by it? You are on page 50, and can’t imagine how you’re going to weave a whole story together from here? 

Once you know what specific thing is making you avoid writing, you can address it. 

Sometimes it means journaling about a particular anxiety. What gets out on the page is less likely to overwhelm your mind. 

Often, it means making the task in front of you more specific. Which also means breaking it down into more manageable chunks. Never mind the whole novel - what is the next scene that you need to write? Where is the character now? What needs to happen to get them to the next stage? 

Not sure what to write at all? That is a huge source of anxiety, and will definitely drive you from the page. If you’re in the middle of the project, try ending each session with a sentence or two of notes to get you started the next day. Or even stop in the middle of a sentence, or paragraph. 

If you are not sure where to start, think of something specific you could work on, just for today. A haiku about what you see outside your window. A specific memory that evokes an emotion in you. Try a writing prompt or exercise. Anything to get you writing. Sometimes a walk - without headphones - can get your mind moving. 

You might also need to break it down into smaller writing increments. Instead of 2000 words per day, aim for 200. Instead of an hour per day, aim for 15 minutes. It all adds up. Start at whatever threshold is enough to quiet your anxiety. 

If boredom is the problem, again, get specific about it. Are you bored with the story? Is it the overall story that no longer excites you? Or this particular place in the story? They have different solutions. 

If you are bored with the entire project, remind yourself WHY you wanted to write it. Try to connect with that feeling. Are you truly interested in this story? Or were you trying to write to the market? Are there any “shoulds” that are making you feel trapped?

Are you playing it safe in some way? A good prompt for this is: “What I really want to write is…” and just let yourself write, preferably by hand, in your journal, for 10-15 minutes, no stopping.  

If you are bored with where you are in the story - you feel like the energy is sagging - then you need to go back and review the Outer and Inner Stakes. Are they strong enough to carry the story? Are they something the reader will care about?Are they something YOU care about? 

You can brainstorm different ideas for solving a particular problem. Go to town, and write down 20 (or 30, or 40…) different ways it could be solved. Anything is okay, no matter how wacky or outlandish in story terms. Sometimes you just need to shake your brain up a bit. 

A client was stuck in her story and tried this, and came up with “A dragon comes roaring out of the sea.” Well, before that, there were no dragons in her story. It wasn’t a fantasy novel. But it spurred her on to think about what it would mean for her character, and she came up with the fact that her character was hallucinating dragons all over the place. Every time she was in a tense situation, a dragon appeared. At first they were scary, but then they became more stern, then finally gave gentle nudges, and the character realized she wasn’t crazy, it was just her unconscious prompting her to stick up for herself more. 

It turned the story around, because before then, the main problem with the story was that the character was too passive. Readers don’t care for passive characters who never make a decision, but only react to what’s happening. The dragons were the writer’s own brain helping her with a major story issue, and also a neat way to help the character’s arc of development. 

It also brought back her excitement for the story. She realized she didn’t need to be boxed in by a particular idea of what the story could or should be. 

The key to uncovering the emotions behind your procrastination is honesty. You may not uncover it in one journaling session. It may take a while to get deep enough to figure it out. You may need to come back to it again and again. But once you know that it’s an emotion-driven response, you don’t have to push your way through. You can rediscover the excitement you had about writing, or about this particular project. And then you’ll be eager to sit down and see what happens next. 

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