Category: procrastination

The No-Surf Files

May 20, 2023 / / 0 Comments

I check my email way too often. I don’t even really want to check it most of the time, but it’s just something *to do*, something to click on, something to tap on my phone. Most of the time it’s pointless. I mean, has anyone really emailed me between now and the five minutes prior when last I checked my inbox?

No. No, of course not.

But I check anyway. “Who knows?” my addicted brain always says. “It’s possible a new message came in.”

So I click and suddenly I’m not just checking email but surfing the internet in general, clickity click click clicking away.

Ugh.

I decided I need to commit to checking my email TWICE a day, once in the morning and once in the late afternoon, and beyond that, nothing more. But it’s not enough to quit doing something. I need to replace the itchy email urge with something better. Something that will make me *feel* way better than the yuck feeling I get from wasting the day checking email and surfing the web.

I thought doing something analog, something with my hands that wasn’t clicking a mouse or tapping a keyboard, might be the way to go, thus was born my idea of doing “The No-Surf Files,” aka a mini zine about whatever random thoughts are in my head when I’m trying to avoid the internet.

I did Issue #0 yesterday, and it was pretty fun and got me away from the computer. I have yet to do Issue #1 because I haven’t really been tempted to surf the internet aimlessly, and because I’m sticking pretty closely to my “check email twice a day” rule. I did check my email three times yesterday, but that’s only because I was trying to figure out the time for a school fundraiser event, and they hadn’t yet emailed the information to us. But besides that, I’ve kept myself off the email merry-go-round.

I already have several blank mini zines folded and ready to go, so now it’s just a matter of waiting for that icky internet urge to start itching, and voila! I will have my no-surf mini zines waiting for me to fill.

I Don’t Want to Be Social

March 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

My micro.blog experiment failed. I thought I could post using the free version, but it turns out my ability to post several things the past two days was some kind of glitch because when I tried to post today, it said I had to upgrade to the paid version.

I don’t begrudge the micro.blog folks for needing to make money. I need to make money too. But I also need to save money, and $60 a year might not seem like much, but that’s $60 I can put to use in a more beneficial way.

I don’t really like social media anyway. I like blogs. Blogs are cool. Blogs can be social, for sure, but they’re more about the exchange of ideas. I love to read blogs, and I never comment on anything because I don’t need to. I don’t need or expect anyone to comment on my blog posts either (though everyone is welcome to comment!). I just like reading other people’s ideas on things. Blogs help me do that.

I was using micro.blog as an alternative to Twitter, but really, I don’t need social media. I know this is supposedly “the worst possible thing” for my writing career because social media is where I’m supposed to build my audience. But I just can’t. I don’t like it. It feels like a waste of time. Even if it’s not a waste of time, even if it’s supposed to help me find readers, I just don’t like it. I don’t want to be “social.”

So, I deleted my micro.blog account.

I’ll just take my anti-social self over here and read a book in the corner. No need to @ me.

Another Lost Weekend

January 30, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Once again I’ve failed to use my Saturday wisely. Many worthy and important things could have gotten done; instead, it was T.V. time. An episode of Jim Henson’s Storyteller Greek Myths (much more tragic and somber than its fairy tale counterpart); an episode of The Crown (which led me down the rabbit hole of Googling all the stuff from the episode to see if it was real; sadly, some of it was); and then Ken Burns’s Jazz ended up being on PBS when I turned off Netflix, and I watched that for half an hour.

Yikes.

I am so bad at getting my work done when I have *actual time to do it.*

Instead, I waste such time, and when the eleventh hour arises, I scramble like mad to do all the work I’ve been putting off for too long. It’s bonkers and unhealthy, and I wish I was better at being disciplined.

Having just read James Clear’s Atomic Habits recently, you’d think I’d know how to develop small habits that will make my life run more smoothly. Alas, I feel like most of my days are filled with too much to do and not enough time to do it, and then when a weekend like today rolls around, I’m so burned out that all I want to do is veg.

I wish I knew how to make my normal weekdays not so stuffed with things to do. I’m sure this is a common feeling for many people. The question I have is why are we all so busy all the time? Is it modern life that’s made things busy? Is it our jobs? I don’t work a high-powered corporate job or anything; I’m a high school English teacher. Is it having to work and raise children that makes things so busy? I know others who work and have kids and they don’t *seem* particularly stressed or overburdened (maybe they just hide it really well…). Or at the very least, I don’t see any of them turning a perfectly good Saturday into a wasted “lost weekend” of vegging and avoiding work.

Why do I do this to myself? What kind of small “atomic” habits can I develop to avoid this cycle of over-work/giving-in-to-acedia? I think it’s interesting that I’m self-diagnosing my problem as acedia, because that implies this is a spiritual malady and not necessarily something I can “life hack” away. With all things spiritual, prayer is often the first priority, so maybe my problem is lack of prayer. Maybe I need to work on my habits of prayer and see what else will fall into place after that. Small habits of prayer might lead to more small habits elsewhere.

Maybe next Saturday can be a little less lost.

Wide-Open Saturday

January 23, 2021 / / 0 Comments

Today was one of those days where I had lots of plans — lots of stuff was gonna get done — and instead, I did practically nothing. I went to the grocery store; that was my big accomplishment. Also, I made some homemade hummus. Otherwise, all the essays I was going to critique, all the fiction I was going to write, all the editing work I was going to do: Nada.

I did manage to read a bit. I wrote in my notebook. But these little things — the reading, the notebooking, the hummus-making, the grocery shopping — they don’t add up to much. I know they’re good things to do, I’m glad I was able to do them, but they feel small. And today was my wide-open Saturday! The day my kids spend with Grandma and Grandpa. It was *the* time to Get Things Done. Instead, I did little things. Good things, important things, but little things. The “big things” — the projects, the assignments, the teaching and freelancing work — none of them fit into the day. Instead, I wrote a few pages in my notebook, ate breakfast with my kids, read some of Pope Francis’s new book, watched TV with my husband, made hummus, went shopping, went to mass, came home and ate dinner. A good day, and yet… and yet…

I don’t know. Maybe it was a good day, full stop. No regrets for the big things I didn’t get done. Maybe the expectation that I should use my “wide-open Saturday” to do “important” work is a misguided expectation. Is it really wrong to spend my free time with my husband, or make some homemade food to feed my family, or go shopping for groceries, or go to mass and worship God (the most important thing I’ll do all  week), or read a book, or just relax? The projects and assignments are still looming, and I’ll have to do them eventually, but for this one day, this one Saturday, the little things were worth it.

The Value of Side Projects

December 31, 2014 / / 0 Comments

I’m stealing a lot of my ideas in this post from Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!

About two weeks ago, I organized a bunch of my old notebooks and stumbled upon an early one from my teenage years. Inside were many maps and names for a fantasy world I called “Kell.” I was surprised at how many of the place names and character names from this old notebook stirred ideas in my head. I’ve been mulling over an idea for a fantasy series set in an original world (i.e.: not a mash-up of mythology and folk lore, as The Thirteen Treasures of Britain is currently constituted). Basic set up is a young woman awakens to find herself in a room, which she discovers is in a high tower with only one window and no doors (think: Rapunzel). She has no memory of how she got there or who she is. This was all I had: the girl in the high tower (yes, I am aware of the Philip K. Dick-ish book title…).

What I really needed was a world for my character and her tower to exist in. Cue my old notebook. I started imagining all the ways to meld my story idea with my imaginary world of Kell. But then I stopped. Wasn’t I supposed to be writing The Thirteen Treasures of Britain and working toward my January 4 deadline? This girl in the tower idea was a distraction, right?

But then I remembered the words of Austin Kleon: “I think it’s a good idea to have a lot of projects going at once so you can bounce between them. When you get sick of one project, move over to another, and when you’re sick of that one, move back to the project you left. Practice productive procrastination” (Steal Like an Artist, p. 65).

This. This is how my brain works. I’m a bouncer. I bounce from idea to idea, exploring, going off on tangents, getting obsessed for several days in a row over one idea, one project, and I work like heck, forgetting to eat or to sleep, until that project is done, and then it’s back to the main project, and working on the main project, until slowly that gets done, but all the while, side projects bounce in and out.

This realization was freedom. I could knock off and spend two hours with my old notebooks and create backstory for my “Red Tower” world (which is what I’m calling the tower where my heroine is stuck), and strangely enough, this knocking about in my side project, has inspired more ideas for The Thirteen Treasures of Britain. The two projects are feeding off of each other and nourishing each other. Suddenly, what felt like a distraction was the very lifeblood for writing.

I’m really starting to realize that the most important thing is to always be working. If I keep working, if I keep creating, then I’ll be on the right track. It’s when I stop creating that things start to die.

Pottermore and Me

October 22, 2014 / / 0 Comments

At first I felt guilty about joining Pottermore and wasting precious hours not writing. This was two days ago. But now, on my third day of “life with Pottermore” I am feeling slightly less guilty. Still guilty, but less so.

Yes, Pottermore is still a massive time-suck that is completely useless (WHY am I obsessed with dueling?! WHY?! I suck at it!), but it’s also helpful for my writing in two ways. One, it’s strangely inspirational. J.K. Rowling, who started off as just a random nobody who spent her off hours writing a novel about a boy wizard, is now one of the most successful authors in history. I can guarantee that I’ll never be as famous or as widely read as J.K. Rowling, but her success story is inspirational nevertheless. I’m not sure why that is — why Rowling and not, say George R.R. Martin? I have no answer for why I find Rowling an inspiration and not Martin, but I do. Perhaps it’s her accessibility. Not the kind of accessibility that lets me know what she had for lunch or which football team she’s rooting for, but accessibility when it comes to her writing life.  And that’s exactly what Pottermore is; it’s accessibility. It allows fans to get access to her writing process and the way her imagination works. I love reading about how authors work, how they get ideas. I love seeing what methods they use, and I love to use some of their methods for my own work. It keeps my mind stimulated and makes the act of writing seem fresh.  So Pottermore *is* helpful in that sense; I’m getting a glimpse into the mind of the Harry Potter author and seeing how she created her stories and her world.

It’s also helpful as part of my “stimuli” theory. When I’m writing a fantasy story, I need fantasy-based stimuli to keep my imagination buzzing. By using the interactive experience of Pottermore, by exploring the world of Harry Potter, I am able to generate ideas for my own fictional world. The swish of a cat’s tail in the darkness of Privet Drive is enough to get my mind racing with story possibilities. The rows upon rows of dusty boxes at Olivander’s stimulate my senses — the smell of the dust; the crinkle of the parched boxes; the pale, hazy light from the storefront window that streaks across the old wizard as he searches the endless stacks. The images and graphics and icons — they all work like little electrical shocks, reanimating my creativity and propelling me to open Scrivener so I can get back to my own novel.

So yes, I should probably spend less time on Pottermore and more time actually writing. But there is a place for Pottermore in my writing life; I just need to make sure I don’t get stuck there.

Original header artwork

Copyright 2015 Chloe Bensinger

Bookshop

I am an affiliate of Bookshop.org and I will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

© 2024 Jennifer M. Baldwin

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑