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The truth is I am too anxious to procrastinate. But right after typing the first sentence, my hands inevitably reach out for my phone, quickly open Instagram and stare through the first few posts on my feed. That’s it. I keep the phone away.
Nothing gained, nothing acknowledged, nothing learned, just a quick glance at lives lived across the world.
It’s not that bad. If I do it only for a few seconds. But it is pure evil, if I give in to the urge to leave my desk with my phone and settle comfortably on my bed, and let the doom scrolling commence! Now, that’s ignoble of a writer.
Procrastination isn’t a nuance of character, that is it doesn’t set you apart from anyone else. In fact, as much as we writers would love to imagine that procrastination is solely ours, anyone and everyone procrastinates. Why? It’s part of the process. Let me console myself, at least, by saying that.
But how do you do procrastination right? Or can you even do procrastination right? Or should you even worry about GETTING procrastination right?
Well, yes and no!
The task at hand might be too difficult, or it isn’t the most interesting thing to do, or you are too tired to think about it, or ... .the reasons go on. And they can all be valid.
Sometimes the task is indeed too difficult and you have been trying to look for ways to get it done, but now you are at the end of your resources. So your mind plays a little trick and blocks it out.
Sometimes you do feel lazy. If you try to push yourself in that moment, you might get the work done but it wouldn’t be the best work. You don't want that! Yet sometimes, you have to push through because you cannot mess with deadlines!
The harsh reality is when you procrastinate you delay your tasks not because you can do it better later (although in some cases that might happen) but also, you are hoping for a promised future.
We do that when we fear the consequence of our present action. What if the article draft will require too many edits, and I would have to redo it anyway? What if my computer slows down and I lose all progress? (I hope that’s a rational fear and not a me thing).
Does that mean that you should get all your tasks done right away? You should push through even though you don’t quite feel like it? No, you don’t. But there are ways to make your minutes and hours of procrastination work for you.
I know I suddenly sound like a motivational guru, but at the ripe age of 30 I am beginning to realise that not all vices play against us. Some of them are good habits in disguise, waiting for a little switch in our mindset.
Don’t know about you, but here are my top 3 acts of procrastination:
And my conclusion is that’s what procrastination mostly is, it’s the act of looking. Not watching, seeing, or even staring, but directing our gaze and attention to something specific, quickly.
Would I be absolutely wrong to say that this very act of mindless looking is nearly the perfect way for inspiration to hit us? There are a lot of resources out there about mindful procrastination, productive procrastination, structured procrastination, and so on. They all give some pretty solid advice.
For example, Professor John Perry argues that if you put that one humongous task on your to-do list, you will probably do every other task of the day just to avoid the big one. And that way you can still get a lot done.
There are also some tried-and-tested methods such as the 3 C’s framework where you
It’s quite straightforward but let’s be honest, most of us won’t make it through the first step.
Doomscrolling is a genuine problem, and I am one of those people who will doomscroll her way out of sleep, responsibilities, and tasks. Not because I want to but it happens.
You cannot turn doomscrolling into something productive, it’s not meant for that. It is excessive, it is doomed. You are absorbing way too much information than you are supposed to and at the end of the day you won’t retain most of it. But here’s the surprise, there will always be those rare few contents that will hover at the back of your subconscious.
It can be a reel about food. A few days back I saw this reel of a girl who made vegan nems at home. I decided to make them one day, and I did it from memory. Sometimes my friends and I will talk about random videos which we saw online, not because they are entertaining only but they somehow fit into the context of the conversation. The video was about making a table. My concerned friend at the moment is building a table in his apartment as I write this.
There are many such pieces of information that will linger in your head, and sometimes as marketers or content creators those pop up out of nowhere for the next big inspiration.
And there is always that thin line between sourcing and spiraling.
Sometimes you are not looking for anything specific. You are going through all the Reddits, IG posts, comments, YouTube videos, Reels, LinkedIn narratives, etc, and you let your brain do the sorting. The beauty of this moment right here is that your brain already knows what it wants and what it likes. You will probably easily spend 3 minutes watching Haley Kalil act out yet another dating disaster because it is relatable, funny, and well-produced. On the other hand, you will probably not spend a second on those channels that give you information about AI in bite-sized content. Simply because it’s boring.
It’s during those sudden moments that your next big pitch idea blinks in. You realise that the next product descriptor video can be done with a few jelly beans and some cups.
And then there is the actual doomscrolling.
The kind where every swipe is an emotional paper cut. You’re not learning. You’re not amused. You're just... there. Lurking. Consuming. Spiraling. Your tabs are open, but your brain is closed. It’s the kind of scrolling that leads to fatigue masquerading as writer’s block, or worse, existential dread disguised as a "bad writing day."
It’s not that you are not feeling like it. It's WHY are you not feeling like it?
Are you avoiding a blank page? Is the subject in hand too hard to understand? I get it because I wrote about things that till date I have no clue of.
Are you doing stuff that you don’t want to do? Did your big idea get rejected and they’ve put you back to the same grinder, pushing you to do the same minimal tasks? Are you just burned out and trying to trick yourself into feeling “productive” because you’re technically reading? Are your words even being read by a human? Or chucked out by the algorithm?
Yes and no to all of them, isn’t it?
Let me tell you this, right after I wrote that line, I automatically switched tabs, went on Facebook, scrolled through the timeline for a quick second, and then came back. Why? Because after asking those questions for a split second there I felt slightly overwhelmed.
The urge is like an itch. You have to scratch it, otherwise it will get on your nerves. Or the better thing to do is keep typing, stay here.
I read this article by Professor Simon May where he says that someone like Tolstoy was paralysed by the thought of death which was the primary source of his procrastination. Now I get that for us, in this century, that’s a very far away thought. But if you do take a moment and think of the inevitability of it all, should we really spend all that time worrying or feeling dejected because things didn’t go our way?
It is okay to feel that way, but there is always another way around the hill. It won’t be the same but it’s comforting to know that it is there.
Not to vilify it or dress it up as productivity, but to simply notice it. To sit with it for a bit. Let your brain catch its breath, wander a little. We writers are pretty great at that. Since ancient times, we have suffered from writers’ block knowingly and unknowingly. All our escapism in books, short walks, conversations, coffee, wine, tv shows, video games, have been ways to give our mind a little rest from the broiling anxiety.
Because somewhere between the doomscroll and the deep scroll, between resisting the work and being called to it, between the itch and the scratch, something shifts. A sentence appears. A draft begins. And you’re back at your desk, typing your way through a hot spring afternoon.
It is procrastination. It is the process. From the writer’s desk.