Time Management Tuesday: Talk Less About Procrastination, Do More

Procrastinating on a Writing Project? Use the 300-Words Trick by Charlie Gilkey is short and sweet. He suggests a reason writers may procrastinate and gives three methods for dealing with it, so they can get right to work.

Reason for Procrastinating

Gilkey thinks many writers put off getting started with work because they don't think they'll be able to finish. I think procrastinating for writers comes about when they don't know what they're going to write next. (Maybe that's just me.) But we may be talking about the same thing. If you don't know what you're going to write next, you're sure going to have some questions about whether or not you're going to be able to finish.

The Gilkey Method of Dealing with Procrastination

1. Make yourself write 300 words. This sounds similar to the old Swiss Cheese Method of time management. It's a way to get started, and no law says you have to stop.
2. If you can't write 300 words of straight narrative, you can write something about your narrative. I would add that you can also make lists of things that could happen somewhere in your narrative. A list of dialogue, actions, and reactions, for instance. Why, I did that just this afternoon.
3. And if you can't write 300 words of narrative or lists, you can write some commentary on the structure of what you're working on. Hmm. I think that would have to be 300 words on how I've put things together wrong and how I can fix it.

The reason techniques like this help? Procrastination is about not being able to start. Three hundred words is starting.