Procrastination kills our writing time!

Hey, everybody. It's Lisa today.

Let's talk about procrastination. I don't know about the rest of you, but sometimes procrastination is worse for me than real life detractors. It sucks my time away and hinders my writing progression.

What are your weak spots? Youtube? Pinterest? Television? Goofing off on your online writing community? Sometimes our procrastination crutches are embarrassing (or maybe that's just me), so maybe you'd rather not say. If so, answer this question: how do you stop the procrastination?

Mine is one of the embarrassing ones, so I'll be the first to 'fess up.
I play Call of Duty Black Ops II on the XBox. *hides face* For those of you lucky enough not to know what that is - it's a video game. My younger daughter got me addicted last year, but I finally broke the habit. Then, me being the nice mother that I am, I bought her a gold card (it's for getting the game online and playing against other people all over the world) for Christmas. Guess who's playing the game again.

But I am hereby declaring myself a Call of Duty-free zone once again. How am I stopping the procrastination? NaNo kept me on track really well, so that's what I'm going to do. Set myself daily goals whether it be writing, editing, plotting, etc, I'm going to make sure I know what I'm supposed to be doing writing-wise every day. When I don't complete those goals, it better not be because of a stupid video game.

Karlie: While work takes a good chunk out of my writing time, I also have to admit my procrastination does a number on it, too. I love to browse my favorite websites, I get distracted by fan fiction far too often than is healthy, and sometimes it's a lot easier to pick up a book than write one.

And...Lisa tends to distract me with long conversations. ;) But I can't really point fingers at her, because she also does word wars with me a lot, which does wonders for my word count.

How do I stop the procrastination? Well, I've found that writing on a schedule helps me, too, and when someone is holding me accountable. Like when we do word wars - that spurs me to not only write something, but put forth an effort into making it good, too.

And I've heard that the first step to overcoming a problem/addiction is admitting you have a problem in the first place. So...*turns and faces the camera*

My name is Karlie Hart, and I am a procrastinator.

Caitlin: In a weird way writing has helped me not be as much of a procrastinator with other things. I think, I should write that scene...but I have laundry to do, I need to buy train tickets for the upcoming trip, etc. etc. And I do those things first, because, even now, I'm a teeny bit afraid of writing. What if what I write isn't good? That's why I agree that writing goals are so useful. You have to get SOMETHING down. It doesn't have to be good, it just has to be done (at least at first). But I still find myself tweeting or emailing much more than I should. And, I completely agree, Karlie, sometimes it's much more tempting to pick up a book than write one!


What are you procrastination habits? Have you broken free of them and how? Are you still working on that? If so, what's your plan?