My Procrastination Types

Last week was release day for Colleen M. Story's new nonfiction book, Escape the Writer's Web. It's a guide to help creative individuals with procrastination, and I found it incredible. (My previous post on this blog has my review.) Today I'm going to share with you my three procrastination types and my action plans.

Inside the book, there is a 91 question survey to fill our to find out your types. Don't worry. It's easy to follow and tally up your scores. The top three scores are your procrastination types. (Because we are not just one type of procrastinator!) There are 13 types, and it is explained what to do if you have any scores that are tied.

When Colleen was working on this book, I was one of the authors who tried the survey and saw my types. They've changed over the past few years. I'm older now, and it's showing. I have no doubt mine will continue to change over the years. Yours will too.

My number one type was by far my highest score. Ten points higher than anything else! It's The Guilty. Regret and self-criticism painted with high expectations do strangle my progress at times. I feel guilty for not writing and then I don't want to write. It snowballs and can get out of control. My number two type was only a few points ahead of the others, but it is sometimes the one I feel the most: The Tired. I struggle with fatigue, especially during the school year when I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning to make sure my son gets on the bus. I notice the older I get, the harder it is for me to function without enough sleep. If I can't focus on a screen, I can't write.

I had three types tied in my third spot. The first one was The Dreamer. Yes, I do get a lot of creative ideas and I can take off with them, but they don't distract me. I find being a Dreamer motivates rather than hinders me. The second was The Crisis-Maker. I tend to what-if a lot and push my deadlines, but again, this doesn't stop me from writing. It gives me a boost when I need it. The final type was The Defier. This is popping up more and more as I focus on writing for my pen name. I want to challenge conventions in the genre, but doing so will affect sales. The urge to rebel is strong, but I have bills to pay.

Each of the 13 types of procrastinator are detailed in their own chapters. Colleen goes deep into each one and provides strategies to deal with each of them. She also goes on to show how your types are tangled together and how to create action plans tailored for the mixed types. Change isn't easy. Breaking old habits to create new ones is a big challenge, but well worth it.

As The Guilty, I feel guilt when I'm tired and don't get to write. I feel guilty when I rebel against genres and snuff out my chance to do well in them. Guilt when I'm not writing, guilt I'm missing out on doing something away from the computer when I am writing, and guilt for not doing everything I could be doing. I'm much more forgiving of other people than I am of myself.

Helping to alleviate my guilt, I'm working on more self compassion and celebrating the little things. Writing one page every weekday, even when I don't feel like it, is progress. I can edit it later. It doesn't have to be perfect. I celebrate getting the words down by playing one of my favorite games or having a fun sized Twix. Small steps do matter, and that's what I'm trying to keep in mind. Celebrating the little things sounds easy, but it's not, especially since I have higher expectations for myself. I have been making a purposeful effort to be jubilant about the small things. Guilt still creeps in, but it has helped me write with more consistency. I consider that a big win! I deserve a cookie.

My second type is The Tired. I have a lot of health issues. It doesn't help I need to get up early for my son, that my husband snores and keeps me awake, and the cat considers me his personal pillow. I wear down fast over the course of the school year. In the summer, the time my body naturally wakes is around 9:00. I wake refreshed and happy on those days. I feel terrible about myself if I can't write because I'm tired. At times, I have a cruel internal dialogue when it comes to my aging body. All of my health concerns are here to stay. They're not going away, so I must learn to be kinder to myself and work with them.

The biggest thing I've done is give myself permission to take naps. I would always fight it before because I'd feel guilty at wasting time asleep when I could be writing. Yet I've found that 3 to 4 naps a week of about 30 - 60 minutes helps immensely. It's taken me a long time to feel okay with being a person who naps, but these days, I look forward to them. I'm working on setting small goals around my naps, so I can still be productive while feeling rested. I do social media and emails in the mornings and any online maintenance, have lunch and nap, and then I'm able to write a good two pages or more in the afternoon. Can I do this every weekday? Not yet, but I'm getting closer.

My final type is The Defier. (My inner rebel loves this title!) I want to create the stories I want to create. I want to defy genre expectations and turn tropes onto their heads. I need to break some rules or I'm not being true to myself. Except... writers can't do this and succeed. Readers love their tropes, and there are expectations for each genre that you can't defy or else they won't be part of that genre. Romance needs to have a happily ever after or else it's a tragedy. (I can assure you romance readers are vehement about their HEA!) Since I want to be the rebel, I tend to dig in my heels and self sabotage.

I have been experiencing this type of procrastination in the past few years because I've been focusing more and more on my pen name. The brand is romance, and a very trope filled type of romance at that. I enjoy writing about love and relationships, BUT I don't like following a formula, and that's what these books are. They're standard romance with clear tropes and happy endings. I don't feel like I'm being true to myself. Yet the books sell well. Better than anything else I've written. It feels good to help with the household bills with my writing.

Another big part of me being a defier is that I've always seen myself as a storyteller. I have stories I wrote when I was five. Yet from a young age, I saw myself as a writer who delved into darkness, fantasy, mystery, and horror. Stephen King has been one of my favorite authors since I was ten. I find it difficult to see myself as a romance writer. Yes, I do still write other genres, but romance is where I've had the most success. It's an old prejudice, and I want to rid myself of it, embrace the author I've become, but it's incredibly difficult to do so.

I'm still working on making a truce with the rebel in me. I write at least one short story a month that defies genre expectations and breaks rules. I allow myself to add an element rarely seen in romance in my books to make them unique while still adhering to the genre expectations. I create outlines for my romance novels and then I break them. It sounds silly, but for some reason, it appeases my inner defier. I've started a new project that's cozy fantasy LitRPG. LitRPG as a genre is heavily male dominated, and I want to see more women writing for it. I'm a gamer, and I know as many women who are gamers as men. We need more LitRPG written by us, and it thrills my inner rebel to break the male dominated genre rules and write from a woman's perspective. This project is going very slow, which frustrates me and triggers my guilt procrastination, but I hope it will help to appease the defier.

None of what I'm doing is huge. These are small steps which will create good habits. It takes time. I'm learning self compassion and patience. Plus, as Colleen suggests in one of the final chapters in the book, I'm reaching out and creating accountability. I have writing friends that will poke me if they haven't seen an update in a while, and critique partners and beta readers who cheer me on. Isolation only gives fuel to procrastination. I love the writing community and I'm so thankful for you all.

I'm curious to know what your procrastination types are. I highly recommend picking up Escape the Writer's Web and check out Colleen's blog, Master Writer Mindset. Her articles are not only helpful but encouraging.

Wow. This post was longer than I anticipated. Celebration time! I'm off to play Blue Prince.