Yes, I’ll admit it, I’m an absolute pro at procrastination with my writing. I’ve been putting this off for YEARS, and I mean years. I’ll make the resolution to write at least once a week and I look at the blog on my (pathetic) website and see that I’ve written nothing, nada, nichts, rein, neinte, hakuna, rud ar bith, ekkert, xejn, nanaon, ha ho letho, nothing on my blog since May 9, 2017… but I digress in fun with words in other languages.
I had just run into my office and was about to run out the door again to go to see a client and I just stopped and said NO, I’m not going to put this off one more second. So sit yourself down and just put something onto paper.
Why do we put stuff off? Why do I work at a turtles pace – hence here is one of my favorite, silly videos of the guinea pig who plays “turtle turtle”. You gotta watch it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW3XtKBlTz0
I really do enjoy writing, but I want everything to be perfect and whitty and think that if I don’t go over it ten times, well then I’m not doing it right. What is right? How about just a flow of consciousness? And who is to say I am wrong, I can say whatever I want. Well, maybe not “fire” in a crowded movie theater, but why am I so circumspect with myself? Particularly when it comes to art. I’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt.
Good rule to live by to make yourself more productive is to do the hard thing first. Before you get distracted and start alphabetizing your sock drawer by color (which I do often), is just jump into it. Get that hard, scary, difficult thing done first, and then the rest of your day will seem like a piece of cake.
So here – I actually did it! I still need to work on the deadlines I create for myself. I rarely if ever miss a deadline for others, so I need to keep that high standard for myself too. And here’s some good advice by one of my favorite bloggers, Seth Godin.
“Six things about deadlines” By Seth Godin
1. People don’t like deadlines. They mean a decision, shipping and risk. They force us to decide.
2. Deadlines work. Products that are about to disappear, auctions that are about to end, tickets that are about to sell out–they create forward motion.
3. Deadlines make people do dumb things. Every time I offer a free digital document or an educational event that has a deadline, I can guarantee I will hear from several (or dozens of) people with ornate, well-considered and thoughtful arguments as to why they missed the deadline. Never mind that they had two weeks… the last fifteen minutes are all they are concerned with. If it’s important enough to spend an hour complaining about, it’s certainly important enough to spend four minutes to just do it in the first place.
4. Deadlines give you the opportunity to beat the rush. Handing in work just a little bit early is a sure-fire way to tell a positive story and get the attention you seek. The chart below tracks the day (out of 10) that I received each of the more than a thousand applications for the free nano MBA program. Want to guess which day’s applications got the most attention from me?
5. When we set ourselves a deadline, we’re incredibly lax about sticking to it. So don’t (set it for yourself, in your head, informally). Write it down instead. Hand it to someone else.
