I have many talents. I write (obviously). I scrapbook. I am a great cook. But where I really excel is at procrastination. Not the best talent to have, especially for a writer.
I remember in school when I'd know about a paper for the entire term and wait until the week it was due to write it. The last week of my senior year of college I think I got something like 6 hours of sleep over three days. I had a lot of papers to write. My husband ended up driving me to campus to turn stuff in because he didn't trust me driving. Probably a smart move on his part. But I got the papers turned in and graduated with a more than decent GPA.
Even now I'm procrastinating. I should be writing but I'm blogging instead. And checking twitter. And my email. And Facebook. And...well, you get the idea. I've had to find tricks to work around the procrastination. I come up with rewards for myself when I meet certain writing goals. I also downloaded a program called Freedom that shuts off the internet on my computer for however long I tell it to. The only way to shut the program down early is to reboot the entire computer. Let's face it, as wonderful as the internet is, it can be a major time suck if you let it.
So that's my confession. What about you? What talents do you have that you wish you didn't?
-Kathleen Collins
The first book in the Realm Walker series comes out in October from Carina Press. To learn more about Kathleen Collins and what she's up to visit her on the web at www.kathleencollins.net It's a great way to procrastinate.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
The Fine Art of Procrastination
Posted by: Kathleen Collins
Above all I am a mother, then a wife and then a writer. All the other roles in my life filter in around those three things.
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Oh yeah!
ReplyDeleteTo my shame, on my highschool yearbook caption I wrote, "Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow." True story! So, I feeeel you. :) Fortunately, over a lifetime I've gotten better at beating back the evil forces of procrastination and do a little 'chu-ching' everytime I DON'T. Great post and what's this Freedom software...?
I pretty much never do anything until the night before it's due. Day job or otherwise. (Including every blog post I've ever written.) The writing deadlines are a little different, because you can't write a 100K novel overnight, so I've managed to become disciplined about setting a daily word goal, but that doesn't mean I start on the day's word goal before midnight. LOL. Procrastinators unite! (Maybe tomorrow!)
ReplyDeleteThough I do check Facebook far, far too often, I don't procrastinate that much when it comes to my writing. I procrastinate chores. How can I possibly waste kid-free time doing the dishes when I haven't hit my writing quota yet? ;P
ReplyDeleteThe freedom software can be found here
ReplyDeletehttp://macfreedom.com/
I know it says mac but it works on mac or pc.