[00:13] Rachel: Hey, writers.
[00:14] Emily: Welcome back to story Magic, the podcast that will help you write a book you're damn proud of.
[00:18] Rachel: I'm Rachel.
[00:19] Emily: And I'm Emily.
[00:21] Rachel: And today we want to talk about procrastination. Whoa. Do you know that feeling when you listen to something and you're like, this is talking about me? A lot of people that are listening to this, we're talking about you. That's so true.
[00:39] Emily: But I was just thinking, because we record these in batches sometimes, guys. And so we just did the episode on process and how plotter versus pants are. Like, we define ourselves that way. And I think some people define themselves as, like, a perfectionist or procrastinator.
[00:56] Rachel: Yeah. And I think that's one or the.
[00:58] Emily: Other because they're not different.
[01:00] Rachel: Right, exactly.
[01:03] Emily: And I totally was, like, a person who was like, I'm a professionalist. I don't procrastinate. And then it's totally not true at all.
[01:13] Rachel: I held both. I was like, yeah, I'm a procrastinator. Until I feel, like, the intense pressure of a deadline. But then I realized that's executive dysfunction, and that's because I'm neurodivergent.
[01:26] Emily: There you go.
[01:27] Rachel: Spicy. So we got something to talk today, too, about maybe we can loop in a neurodivergent piece of.
[01:35] Emily: I would love to. All right, so what is procrastination? Should we heard?
[01:40] Rachel: Yeah. What is it?
[01:43] Emily: What is it? So my understanding of procrastination based, know, just the reading that I've done, especially from Amy McNee. She has a really good book on this and really good resources on this, is that a lot of people think procrastination is, like, laziness and not showing up for a project because you're just, like, lazy. But in reality, it's not showing up for something because of fear. Right? Is that how you would define it?
[02:15] Rachel: Yeah, I think it's, like, pushing. So procrastination is pushing something off to do it later. And I do think a lot of the times it's a question of laziness or willpower. That's usually the word that comes back to punch me in the gut is like, if only I had more willpower, I would do it now, but I am lazy. I think then you adopt that identity of laziness, and so you just don't do it. But there's lots of reasons why something might feel not doable, and I think that is the root of procrastination. Or procrastination. Procrastination, perfectionism, procrastination I think that's like the root of procrastination is that something feels not doable, so you don't do it, and then you label yourself with these negative identifiers that aren't true, but they feel true because of capitalism and hustle culture.
[03:16] Emily: Yeah. I feel like it's oftentimes fear, and I know we're going to talk about that a lot, but I do feel like sometimes it's also because you just don't want to. There are some things that in life where, especially with shoulds, where it's like the world tells me I should do something, and so I'm procrastinating. Right? Air quotes, procrastinating it, when really it's just not worth my. I have just decided it's not valuable to me right this moment. And I think when it comes to creativity, oftentimes we do really want to write. And so I would say in a vast majority of cases it's fear. But it could also be like you're telling yourself you should do this, goes back to the process episode we just recorded, but you should be doing something in your process that just doesn't feel right for you. And so you're not doing it because it just doesn't sound fun, and it just doesn't. And that's not laziness either.
[04:13] Rachel: Right.
[04:14] Emily: That's like a misalignment of values. So I just want to say that before we dive into what I know is going to fear is oftentimes the biggest. Yeah. But sometimes it could just because it's just like, not. It's okay to not want to do something that the world tells you that you should do.
[04:31] Rachel: Right. Well, I think there's, like, fear. I'm probably going to put this into three buckets. But there's more. But there's the fear aspect. There's like energetic alignment of process brain work, and then there's like, you need a break.
[04:48] Emily: Rest.
[04:50] Rachel: You're procrastinating because one of these three things is off a little bit, is affecting you.
[04:57] Emily: I love those definitions. Yeah. I was thinking a lot about fear when I was prepping for this episode, but I like the distinction of those two other buckets because I think those are equally important.
[05:08] Rachel: And it's never laziness, guys.
[05:10] Emily: Laziness does not exist.
[05:11] Rachel: Yeah, exactly. You might have referenced this, but wasn't there, like a book that you read or a quote that you have about.
[05:19] Emily: It's a book. An incredible book. I think it's called the Laziness lie.
[05:25] Rachel: Yeah.
[05:26] Emily: By Devin Price. They're a PhD, and they just have the best perspective on laziness that, like, ever heard and a hustle culture and everything. Yeah, their book is amazing, so you should definitely check it out. We'll put it in the show notes. That book, just, like, open it helped me look at myself in a much more compassionate way. Like, reading that book just redefined my relationship with myself. So highly, highly recommend. If you're someone whose inner voices tell you you're lazy.
[05:57] Rachel: Yeah, man. Okay. I want to go back to fear. I want to talk about fear, but that is making me think so hard of Instagram workout reels that are like, if only you had discipline.
[06:15] Emily: Discipline. That word.
[06:20] Rachel: Tangent. If only you had discipline, everything would be better, but you're too lazy to be disciplined anyway. We can talk about that later if we get to it, but I think there's so many words that people attach to procrastination when they're unnecessary. So can we just love ourselves a little bit more?
[06:45] Emily: It all comes back to hustle culture, right? This idea, like, hustle culture tells us that we are supposed to be machines that are just, like, churning something out that's effective, efficient, and perfect, right? And procrastination is the antithesis of that, because you're not. You're pushing something off, right? And so there's this tendency when we're procrastinating to want to just beat up on ourselves and just, like, we're the problem, right? It's because I am lazy or I don't have ambition or I don't want this enough, or if I only had more willpower, if I only had more discipline, right? If I. If I. If I. And it's never that. Like, it's. It's never, ever that. And so if that's the only thing you take away from today, like, look underneath it, like, what is actually going on? So maybe we should talk about. Why don't we talk about the first two buckets before we talk about the fear? Yeah. You want to talk about rest? I know you'd love to talk about rest.
[07:45] Rachel: I love to talk about rest. Yeah. I feel like here's what's coming up for me right now. As busy people, we have really big to do lists, and usually writing is, like, one of the last things on the to do list. Like, you have to do everything else before you are allowed to enjoy yourself in any way. And whether that's creatively or, like, watching tv, it doesn't matter. But let's talk about writing right now. Whenever you get to the time of your day where you can write for a really long time. That was the end of my day because I felt like everything had to be done first, and then I was just way too tired. And so in my head, I'm like, oh, I'm procrastinating writing because I'm doing this other thing. But really, I wasn't procrastinating writing. I was trying to find a way to rest. I was trying to heal from burnout. And the narrative that I was telling myself was I was procrastinating my writing, but really, my body was just, like, screaming. My brain was just like, please let me take a break. And it doesn't matter at what point of your day you're writing for me. I did try to save it to the night, but I also really still like writing at night. So then I was realizing, okay, well, it was a rest thing because I still am really good at writing at night, and that's my preferred time to do it, but I needed to rest in other ways. My point is, if you find yourself hitting this wall of, like, your eyes are crossing, no matter when you sit down to write, the only thing you want to do is lay in your bed. The only thing you want to do is watch a tv show. The only thing you want to do is some effort to refill your well or take a break or go for a walk, and you're feeling resistance of, like, I really just wish I could do this. Instead. You probably are needing some rest. That's probably why this doesn't feel very good for you right now, is because you need to take some time to rest. And that process of resting specifically to heal from burnout, but also, most of the time when we get to that zone, it's not a one night thing. It's like a pervasive need to rest. And we talked about that in our burnout episode with gallery, which is episode 27. Go back to listen to that. Yeah, but if you're procrastinating so hard every single time you sit down to write and you're just wishing you could do any other fun task, you probably just need a break. You probably need to heal from burnout. Rest your body. And that takes time. Like multiple days, multiple weeks, multiple months of resting.
[10:42] Emily: Yeah. It also takes intentional rest because oftentimes I'll find people who are in burnout and they have been procrastinating their writing for a couple of months, let's say. And then they're like, well, I haven't written in a few months. I should be rested. And the reality is that when you are avoiding doing something, you're putting energy into that. And then if you're shaming yourself for not showing up, if you're shaming yourself for procrastinating, especially with all those. I'm lazy and I don't have discipline or willpower. Right. If those are your narratives, those take a lot of energy, too. And so unless it's really hard and probably almost impossible to truly rest, unless you're allowing yourself to. Right. Instead of shaming yourself for it. So I just want to kind of throw that in there.
[11:38] Rachel: Yeah. I really love the office, and I know you don't watch it. You're not going to get this.
[11:43] Emily: I've never seen know. I know. Don't come at me, people.
[11:49] Rachel: It's like our favorite tv show. Favorite couple tv show for sure, but favorite tv show and for everyone. Like, do you remember when. So Jim, Emily, Jim is one of the main characters. He's like the funny, cool guy. And he is used to being the favorite around the office. And then there's Dwight, who is like the super hard worker who's like a kiss ass who's really sometimes kind of weird. He usually is. Like, he works so hard and just more of like a slacker who works and he needs to. It's a classic dynamic of nerd and cool guy. Right? So the first boss, Michael, doesn't really give Jim a hard time because he thinks Jim is super cool. But then there's this new boss that comes in named Charles Minor, and he's like a super stickler. And he does not like Jim at all. And he super calls out Jim for everything. There's this line that he says where Jim is just like, existing, and Charles is like, oh, hey, Jim. Getting some rest from all your Jim's like, what's wrong with, like, what am I doing wrong? I think about that all the time. And will and I joke about it whenever we're relaxing. He's like, oh, getting some rest from all your, like, yeah, I need some more rest. Just give me more. But this sentiment, I feel like carries over in all this negative self talk of like, shouldn't you be rested by now? Shouldn't you be back on your feet? Shouldn't you be so super energized? And it's like, actually it takes kind of a while to get from a place of like, super severe energy depletion to feeling good about doing things again. Long tangent.
[13:51] Emily: Yeah, no, I love it. I love it.
[13:53] Rachel: Rest, guys.
[13:54] Emily: Oftentimes, procrastination is just a huge call for rest. Big red flag.
[14:00] Rachel: Big red flag.
[14:01] Emily: The second bucket, what was it?
[14:04] Rachel: The second bucket was like an energetic. The difference between. There's no energetic alignment between what you're trying to do and what your brain says you should be doing.
[14:16] Emily: Go listen to our last episode.
[14:18] Rachel: Exactly. Which is episode 55. The versatility of process. I think we have a natural tendency towards. Our brains work in a lot of different, uniquely different ways. And whenever I think about sitting down to do a scene by scene outline, I will just not do it. I just won't. But for a long time, I told myself the narrative that that was the next thing to do. I was at the stage where I needed to do a scene by scene outline. I couldn't start drafting until I had done a scene by scene outline. And I just really did not want to do it. And so I didn't do anything. I didn't write. I didn't try to figure it out. So I feel like that's the type of example we're talking about, or that I'm talking about is when you're telling yourself you have to be doing a writing process thing or like a stage of writing thing and it just sounds like the worst thing ever to you. Like, so not fun. I don't want to do that. I don't like doing that. There's like a question mark for me of why aren't we liking this? Because there's some overlap to fear where maybe you have to do some character work that is bringing up some stuff for you and that's really uncomfortable, which we can tie back to fear. But also, maybe you don't need to do that character table right now. Maybe just start drafting.
[15:49] Emily: Yeah, but on the flip side, so for me, that shows up. I used to procrastinate a lot when I felt like when I was telling myself, you just need to sit down and just write, yeah, you just need to sit down.
[16:02] Rachel: I wouldn't do it.
[16:03] Emily: I would be like, I'd come up with 8000 other reasons not to do it because that's just not how my brain works. I do a lot of thinking work before I actually put sentences in order on a page. And usually, honestly, I don't write in order in a scene. I will write the fifth paragraph and then the second one and then the 20th. I bounce around based on what I can see. But I used to try to make myself write, like, first sentence, second sentence, third sentence in order, and I just wouldn't do it. And so if you are telling yourself, I should do something. I have to do something. And like you said, it sounds like the worst thing ever. What doesn't sound like the worst thing ever? And maybe do that instead.
[16:45] Rachel: Exactly. Yeah. There's also too, I mentioned this earlier, but there are a lot of tasks for me that feel like, of course I know how to do that. This is where I'm bringing in some of my learnings about neurodivergence, and I am not the expert on this topic. Friends, I'm not trying to explain to you how you should be doing this, but the feeling for me, the difference between executive dysfunction and that's not my process is there are plenty of tasks for me that feel so simple and so easy, and I don't know quite how to put it into words, but it feels like I just cannot do it. I know how to call the doctor's office to make a doctor's appointment. I know that that's going to take 5 seconds, but I just cannot do it. It feels so impossible. And then with writing, there might be something of like, I know that I need to do this thing, but I just can't do it. And there are other ways to approach that. So that's usually when I try to body double, which is when I loop in a friend to just work next to me and we can accomplish, doesn't even have to be the same things, but just the simple act of having someone do something with me can sometimes unblock that executive dysfunction. Or like, writing sprints tend to be really helpful or just a focus timer of any regard of like, okay, I'm setting a timer for 20 minutes, what's going to happen? And then see what happens. Everybody has little different tricks, but if you're in that zone of like, you're not procrastinating it, it just literally feels impossible to do. Maybe explore this solution from, like, how can you, this is not going to come out right, but how can you trick your brain into doing it? That's where I think you have to learn the nuances of your specific brain chemistry and what can help you break through some of these blocks. And sometimes for writing, it's changing to doing something more fun. And sometimes it's like, hey, friend, I really just need you to hop on a Zoom call with me and sit here and then I'll get it done.
[19:25] Emily: Yeah. And I think that helps me too, sometimes, especially with fear, which we'll talk about next. But when I'm afraid of doing something, it's like having that accountability of someone being there with you or just telling them that you're going to do it can help you break out of that. Yeah, I love that. All right, let's talk about fear.
[19:50] Rachel: Yeah.
[19:53] Emily: Should we talk about perfectionism first? Because I feel like those two things, like perfectionism and procrastination are just two sides of the same coin. They're different ways of trying to avoid your fear of doing something right. So if you're afraid, it says fear of failure oftentimes, right? If you're afraid of writing the scene wrong, then you might rewrite the first paragraph 18,000 times, and that is perfectionism. Or you might just do the laundry and clean your bathrooms and do all the other things because you don't want to procrastinate because you're afraid of starting. And so I feel like they're just, people probably have tendencies towards one or the other, but I think we all do both. I really do.
[20:40] Rachel: I think so, too. Yeah. You know what I'm thinking just now, as you were describing, perfectionism is like the fear of failure, the fear of being good enough, the fear of rejection and shame. It almost feels like the procrastination is the anticipation of rejection. It's like the anticipation of failure, the anticipation of shame, where procrastination, you're like trying to judo move your way away from failing. But procrastination is, I'm going to feel really bad, so I'm not going to do it because I don't. It's like an avoidance of those same emotions just in different ways, where perfectionism is trying to save yourself from feeling them by the act of being. Yeah, but it feels like procrastination is the anticipation or the acceptance that you're going to feel them anyway. So why do the task?
[21:44] Emily: I love that. No, I think that distinction is spot on. Amy McNee likes to say in a lot of her Instagram posts and stuff, this question of what am I running away from? And I think that that can be a really helpful question when you find yourself procrastinating is like, what is it that I'm afraid is going to happen? What am I running away from? Because as soon as you start to name that, you can start to manage it. I just lost my thought. But yeah, that's what it comes down to. It's like this fear of, there's so much fear of failure and fear of judgment with art because you're putting doing something in the world that can't be perfect. There's no such thing. And so we procrastinate, making decisions, right? We've talked about how you have to make decisions when you are writing. You have to make thousands of decisions at every which way. Right? And there is no right or wrong decision. There's just the decision that you want to make. And that just can feel so vulnerable. And so the last thing you want to do is shame yourself for it. You don't want to shame your fear. And so, like, calling yourself lazy or saying you need more willpower and more discipline is just going to keep you stuck, I think.
[23:11] Rachel: Yeah, because this is where I think that advice misses so hard is because the idea of if you just worked harder, or like, if you had more discipline, if you had more willpower is like missing the root, which is the fear. The fear of what? What are you running from? And so it doesn't matter how hard you work, it doesn't matter how disciplined you try to be, you still are going to run into the barrier like, yeah, maybe discipline is showing up at your computer every day, sitting there for 20 minutes. But if that fear isn't addressed, what's the discipline going to do for you? Okay, you can do your best, but you still have to address the fear in order to make sustainable and consistent progress, which is what we talk about a lot. Like, you can only brow beat yourself so much before you're back in square one. Yeah, it's exhausting.
[24:14] Emily: It's so exhausting. I used to be one of those people who was like, I'm so disciplined and I would show up every day to write and I would do all these things and I was like, so miserable, I couldn't finish an act one. I beat myself up all the time when I didn't show up. Or if I didn't start writing by seven, then, oh, man, it wasn't going to happen. Right. There's all these things that happen that I just think trying to make yourself disciplined and trying to find the willpower, just exacerbate what you need to do is love on yourself and ask yourself, what am I afraid of? And talk yourself through. Is that a true fear? Is it reasonable? Is it worth moving even in the face of that fear? And where is it coming from? Just like all those questions, if you can get curious with it the way you would a child that's afraid, right?
[25:06] Rachel: Yeah.
[25:06] Emily: Then you're going to find yourself so much further than you would if you try to just brow beat yourself. It sounds so much easier to be like, I'm just going to be a drill sergeant and force myself to show up. That just sounds so much easier than the vulnerability of sitting down and being like, what are you afraid of? Let's walk through it. But it's so much more effective.
[25:27] Rachel: Yeah, I think, too. Speaking of parenting your inner child, some of these fears you accept and move on with, I don't know. I definitely feel like the intensity of my fear of rejection is a lot less, but that still is a very normal, human thing to fear rejection. And when my daughter is like, I'm afraid of the dark, I'm not going to tell her, oh, you're being ridiculous. There's nothing to be afraid of because I'm still afraid of the dark, and I'm 30. I think there's some fears that you're just like, it's okay to be afraid. And then you're like, hey, I can still take action even in the face of my fear. I don't want you to leave this conversation. I don't want listeners to leave this conversation thinking that the simple feeling of having a fear means that you won't do anything until that fear disappears. Because it doesn't. You learn how to talk to the fear. You learn how to accept the fear. You learn how to. Oh, my God. I'm back at the Babadook.
[26:46] Emily: We talked about perfectionism in that one, and now we're talking about procrastination.
[26:51] Rachel: I talked about the Babadook in episode.
[26:53] Emily: 53, if anybody wants to go listen to that.
[26:57] Rachel: Yeah, I mean, the fear just becomes something that you become friends with and you take action in spite of. And it becomes a little bit less scary every time you do that.
[27:12] Emily: Yeah. And I think one of the biggest things you can do is just figure out what the fear is. I think so many writers are beating themselves up because they are telling themselves they're lazy and they're trying to be disciplined, when really they have this fear that they haven't identified. And when that fear is subconscious, it just wreaks so much havoc. When you can say, I am afraid of the dark, right? And when you can say that out loud and you're not just living in this haze of anxiety and bodily emotions, when you can make it a conscious thing, I think that has a lot of power, then you can be like, okay, I'm afraid of the dark, and I'm still going to keep my lights off anyway. Or.
[28:02] Rachel: Well, and I think we talked about maybe way I thought about it, I can't remember if we talked about it in that perfectionism episode with Jocelyn, but the definition of courage or bravery is not that fear doesn't exist. It's that you take action despite that. So then if you're like, okay, maybe if I'm procrastinating because I'm fearful or because I had these really deep fears that I'm feeling, what would be the courage angle? What would be the one thing that I could do that would feel safe despite these fears? What would be the, if fears don't go away, how do I be courageous? What does that look like for me to show up in that way? I think the procrastination is going to come and kind of go. And the more that you, I don't want to force that choice into action because maybe you need to rest. But when you're facing that fear, what's the easy thing you could do? What's the small step you could take? What's, like the most safe thing that you can try to break through that fear, to break through that perfectionism. And the more you do the little things, it builds and builds until you feel more confident, more courageous, more brave to try the bigger things.
[29:27] Emily: Yeah, we have a consistency episode. Right. I would suggest folks could go listen to that. Or if not, just go check out Kristen Kiefer's podcast.
[29:39] Rachel: Yeah, we have an episode 41, which is creative. Create consistency without burnout. And that was with guest Lewis Jorstad, who's a really great friend of ours, but we have so many conversations about we do sustainability and developing a process that can keep you going.
[30:05] Emily: Yeah. So to kind of wrap us up, I think the TLDR this episode is for the first thing, when you're procrastinating, the first thing to do is kind of say, okay, I'm procrastinating. And don't shame yourself for that. Get curious. And I think the first question is, is it because you need rest? Is it because you are trying to should yourself into a process that doesn't feel right? Or are you afraid of something? And it could be a combination of those three things. But I think examining where the root of the procrastination is your first really important step. And then if you need rest, rest without shame. And be honest with yourself if it's the rest piece, because you might try to tell yourself, oh, it's fear. Oh, it's this other thing because you don't want to rest.
[30:57] Rachel: Rest so important.
[30:58] Emily: When in doubt, rest seriously. And then if it's the process one, go listen to that episode on process and get curious. What sounds fun, what sounds like play and isn't a should, right. And maybe go down that path. And then if you think it's fear. Name that fear.
[31:19] Rachel: Name that fear. Befriend it.
[31:20] Emily: Love on it. And I think that will lead you really far.
[31:28] Rachel: Yeah.
[31:28] Emily: Any other action steps give people?
[31:34] Rachel: No, I don't think so. I think that's a perfect wrap up.
[31:38] Emily: And if you find yourself procrastinating a lot, I want to suggest the book for the procrastinator by Amy McNee, who's a creative coach. It's a journal prompt book, so it has a lot of readings on procrastination, but then there's a bunch of journal prompts that can help you start to work through some of this stuff. It's a fantastic book, so I will stick the link in the show notes, but if you find yourself procrastinating a lot, I would highly a, you probably need rest, and b, go check out that.
[32:13] Rachel: Yes, exactly. All right.
[32:17] Emily: If you want to build a successful, fulfilling, and sustainable writing life that works for you, you've got to get on our email list.
[32:23] Rachel: Sign up now to get our free email course. The magic of character works. After seven days of email magic, you'll have the power to keep your readers flipping pages all through the night.
[32:32] Emily: Link in the show notes. We'll see you there. Close.
