The Winter of Deep Procrastination
This was sent to my newsletter list in early December, they get a letter like this every month, as well as my favourite things I’ve been reading and listening to. I usually don’t reshare newsletters, so if you’d like these more private writings in your inbox sign up here.
I feel that I open most of these letters with an observation about how quickly the month has gone - even if it doesn’t make the final edit they mostly start out that way. November, however, is the slowest month I have ever experienced. It has been one month and two days since I moved, and yet I have gone over every footpath at least twice, I have found the sneaky backways to the shops and I have woken up every day in disbelief that it is still November.
A dragging month is often a sign of not much getting done, and my friends, this certainly seems to be the case here.
Before I moved I was relishing the thought of a Winter Of Deep Creation. My little office room with the huge window would be all set up with my desk and I’d have a proper workspace instead of podcasting around storage boxes as I had for the previous 18 months. I would have steaming tea and light a candle at nine to signal the start of CREATION, at which point I would gracefully ease into writing Mapping and then in the afternoon, after a lunch of warm soup and books, elegantly transition into writing a book.
I could see it all. I was so, so looking forward to it, to reclaiming all that love for work and creative energy that I’d been longing for for months. There was nothing that could stand in my way because I really wanted it - I was so motivated, the chair and the desk were right there, I had everything I needed!
And yet.
Yesterday I rolled out from my duvet burrito at 10 because someone knocked on the door with a Black Friday purchase. I shuffled around in my dressing gown, got dressed into sweatpants with old dinner stains on and the jumper I’d been wearing all week. I made the tea (one tick) and eventually sat at my desk at about 11, with my phone left downstairs so that I could do some good focused creation (two ticks). I opened a Google Doc and scanned the outline, not really sure where to begin because I sure as hell didn’t have more than a few lines to say about this crummy outline. And then, I spent the rest of the day on WhatsApp until it got dark.
Shall we do a split screen of Expectation vs Reality and see if you can spot the difference? My Winter Of Deep Creation has become a Winter Of Deep Procrastination, and I’m not sure what to do about it.
One thing I am doing about it is really beating myself up over it. Feeling really good and guilty about how I’ve consciously created my year, my life, to have this space to do the one thing I keep banging on about wanting to do and here I am spinning on my chair looking at the wall (and to be fair, also comparing supermarket Christmas food offerings).
Of course I jest, somewhat. There has been guilt and “what’s wrong with you now?”, but in a tender, curious way rather than a bullying one. I am in a few minds of what to do now. Do I screw up the project plan and let inspiration strike when it does and otherwise leave it til January when it’ll be more stressful but I’ll at least have a more urgent deadline? Do I start finding ways to make myself do it - say by taking my laptop out to a cafe or buying a fancy desk hourglass on Black Friday..? Do I strip back the scale of the plans, look for how to make this the easiest most minimal process, and go from there? (See below for an update!*)
I have been thinking a lot about motivation. I realised, through talking to a friend, that this is the first time I’ve had creative energy around work since pre-break up. And that pre-break up, work was a place where I could be in control and be capable in a way that I was contained away from being in every other aspect of my life. Now that is no longer the case it’s as if the driving force that was always behind my work has changed and I’ve no idea where to direct the hose let alone control it. So it’s easier to just… spend the afternoon on WhatsApp.
I don’t yet know what the answer is, but I know the only way I’ll find it is through action. I’m going to try all of those possible methods I listed above, and anything else that comes to mind in the mean time. I’m going to throw it all at the wall because the only way to know is to do. But I do know, no matter how it arrives, there will be Mapping in January.
*Update. I did go out to a cafe, and that did make me get the ball rolling and get a chunk I’d been putting off for a week done. I also did buy the 30 min sand timer and have found that very useful - a digital timer is too easy to ignore or forget about, whereas having the sand timer next to me was a persistent reminder of what I was supposed to be doing, as well as how long I on;y had to be doing it for. Having the little sprints has definitely been working, and often (but not always) once I get past the first ten minutes I can get on a roll.
I have also made it ok to not make the finished version of what I’m creating - it’s just words in some sort of order and I will come back and make it better later but for now I need pixels on a screen. And finally, I am doing just one chunk a day. I could do more, it’s averaging at about two hours (plus faff time) to write each chunk, but “only” having to do one little bit a day relieves the pressure and helps me keep going - I just might need to slightly extend my deadline.
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