Discussion Time: How to Set Aside Time for Your WIP (and Not Get Distracted)

If you’re anything like me then you know how much of a b***h procrastination can be, even when it comes to something I love as much as writing and as much as my current WIP there’s always that small voice in the back of my mind saying; “you still have plenty of time left, you can get around to that later”. But “later” never comes.

I’ve always been this way, and it seems like blogging has been the only aspect of my life that’s escaped my procrastination tendencies because in the run up to the start of a November and the start of NaNoWriMo when I should be working on my WIP plan I’m consistently putting it off.

How to Set Aside Time for Your WIP (and Not Get Distracted)

If anyone has any tried and true methods for putting a stop to procrastination all together please let me know. Like I said earlier this isn’t a recent thing for me and I’m not sure how it doesn’t apply to blogging but I also don’t know how to replicate it to apply it to my WIP.

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I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again, I’m a very organised person. I have a schedule for blogging so why don’t I have a schedule for my WIP? The short answer is I don’t know, but if I’ve found something that works for blogging I’m sure I can find something that will work just as well for my WIP. In the end it’s all about time management, and that’s something I can be very good at when I put my head to it.

Step one to managing my procrastination is to create a schedule and stick. To. It!

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One of this things that gets me every single time is the Internet. Sometimes I can lie to make myself feel a little better about the fact that it’s been another day and I still haven’t got any planning done; I’ll tell myself I was looking on Pinterest to find aesthetic images for my WIP because that counts as research doesn’t it? But that’s a lie because I’ll start looking on Pinterest for aesthetic images, and before too long I’ll fall down that black hole and find myself miles away from where I started looking at bullet journal pages for the bullet journal I keep meaning to start but never get around to (again procrastination is a b***h).

Then there’s just the mindless Internet, where even I can’t fool myself that scrolling through Tumblr or Facebook (I never go on Facebook, that’s when you can tell my procrastination tendencies have reached new heights) is technically research for my WIP so it technically counts.

So step two is going to be to turn the Internet off on my laptop, because clearly I can’t trust myself with it on.

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Something I’ve learnt about procrastination, and I’m not sure if this applies to everyone or just me, is that I just need to get started. Once I sit down and actually start working on my WIP I really get into the zone, and then it’s hard to stop working. It’s actually the same with other aspects of my life, when I’m in the middle of a reading slump sometimes all I need to do is push myself past the first chapter, and I’ll find my slump was nothing more than a disguised form of procrastination.

The final step, step three, is going to be to force myself to start writing, because I know once I do I’ll find my desire to procrastination fade away.

(Again though I’m not sure if this will work for everyone.)

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So my three step plan to beat procrastination is very simple, and it should be easy to follow, but who wants to bet I fail at the first hurdle? When it comes down to it I think everyone has that desire to put things off, it’s just whether you decide to ignore that voice whispering, “you can get around to that later”, or give in. I’ve always been one to give in, but now I need to identify that voice and say back, “no”.

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Now Onto the Discussion Part of This Post:

Is procrastination something you find yourself doing a lot, or are you able to ignore that voice when you hear it whispering?

Do you have a schedule for working on your WIP, or do you just write whenever you feel like it?

What tips have you found that help you get started on whatever it is your procrastinating?

Have you ever fallen down a Pinterest black hole when searching for aesthetic images for your WIP?

Let me know in the comments below.