Learn Why You Should Start Writing or Quit Procrastinating About It Altogether
Procrastinating is an article that aims to help us understand why many people ask questions but fail to take action, even after receiving answers. These are my personal thoughts on the matter. I cannot fathom how some individuals can continue to procrastinate for years on end, while others may do so for shorter periods of time. Nevertheless, every person who procrastinates has their own reasons for doing so, regardless of whether or not I approve of them.
But what are some of those reasons? Well, I do write, though not always. I don’t procrastinate about anything. I make a decision either to do it or not. I either go for or against it. But not everyone is or should be the same. This is why this opinion article is only an imagination. It’s not from my personal experience.
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Why Are You Procrastinating Now?
1. Not Knowing Enough. If I was to procrastinate, (which I don’t), one of the main reasons to do so would have been about me not knowing enough about either the subject or the language in which I have to write. I imagine most people procrastinate because they think they don’t know enough yet about the subject.
The subject may be language or the genre they wanted to write in. If English is their second or third language, people may think they don’t have enough vocabularies to write whatever they want to write. However, sometimes people may not be able to write because they don’t know enough about the subject, even if English is their native or first language.
2. Not Believing in Myself. Apart from fearing writing a post using my poor English, or lack of topic knowledge, I may also not believe in myself. This is about the ability in doing what I want to do, and in this point, to write what I want to write. Even if I know English, and I know a lot about potatoes, I may still not believe in myself that I can write anything about potatoes.
I may have no problem with writing itself, or language, but still, I may not start writing because I don’t believe I can actually do it, because I don’t believe in me being a good writer. I may fear what others will think of my work, just because I wrote it myself. The focus here is not on the work but on me, the writer.
3. Fearing Writing. Writing is hard work, and most people can imagine how hard it is before they even try it out. One of the reasons to procrastinate about writing is fearing doing the hard part of it. Others might have made me fear even more because of what they say about writing. These may be those who write their own chunks of text. They may also be those who procrastinate about writing like I do, (if I really do).
4. Not Having a Reason to Write. Yes, we do most things for a reason. I may procrastinate about writing because I may have all it takes to write, but no good reason for writing. People write to make more money; others write to make just some extra money. But maybe none of these is good enough to drive me that route.
5. Fear of Criticism. Constructive or not, criticism is more than enough a reason to make me think twice about writing, especially if I don’t believe in myself, my English, and my writing abilities. I may try to write something but the first feedback I get may prove me right, “I can’t write well.” This works best if I have already believed I can’t write better than others. If I already believe I can, then nothing will persuade me not to give it a try, but if I believe I can’t, then that negative feedback is bad enough to make me stop writing.
6. Fear of Saying Something Wrong. I may also fear writing something I love to write if I know readers will begin to paint a bad picture of me, and then judge me according to my writing. But writing is a creative piece, not always representing me, the writer. Yet, not everyone sees writing in the same way. Not every human thinks or should think in the same way. So, I may fear what others will think about me, especially in this part of the world where collectivism reigns.
7. Fear of Publishing. There are two different ways of getting published after successfully writing a book. One is the well-known ancient traditional publishing, and the second option is the modern self-publishing option. Most writers prefer to use traditional publishing, but it is still not easy to get through the barriers and gatekeepers, as Mark Dawson puts it in his training courses (See his SPF podcasts on YouTube for more information).
Self-publishing is harder than the traditional book publishing option, simply because one has to do most if not all the tasks associated with the book publishing, all by themselves. But self-publishing doesn’t mean you have to do everything alone.
8. Fear of Book Marketing. It’s one thing to write, edit, design, and publish a book, but it’s totally something else to market a book and make sales worthy of your hard work. This may be another fear, leading to my writing procrastination. Some people think before they act. They think about the whole process from writing to making sales. If they don’t see any signs of selling more books and earning a good amount of money from their writing, then they must keep thinking until things look clearer.
9. Not Having Enough Time. Time is one important factor when it comes to procrastinating on writing a book. Time is a valuable asset, and we only use it when we know we have to. If I think my language is not good enough for writing something that will make sense, then I have to decide if I really have to waste time writing it.
Because I think I don’t have time to write, (and of course I know I don’t have it), I may continue to think and procrastinate about writing. This may last for a while or forever, which is sad for those who love writing. Yeah, we all have our own ways of doing things. Maybe other things in life are more important to me than writing.
10. Being a Perfectionist. Yeah, some people are just that, perfectionists. They can’t do anything less than that, perfect. It’s okay to aim at being nearly perfect. I may procrastinate writing because I want to do it as perfectly as I can. I want to write, edit, design, and format my book perfectly. I don’t know if there’s anything like perfect when it comes to writing, but that’s how I feel about it.
I procrastinated, I am procrastinating, and I will be still procrastinating about writing in the future because I want to do it perfectly right. I don’t want to write a f*cking book, I want to write the best one ever. I want to write and edit the book and make it the best it can be. I don’t want anything short of that kind. But because I can’t, I have to keep thinking about it for a while, or forever. I may procrastinate for days, weeks, months, and years.
Do You Still Procrastinate?
Finally, these are some of the reasons I think I might procrastinate if I have to, but unfortunately, I don’t. I write, and I will be writing about anything that comes to mind. I can write about not writing. I can write about writing. I will be writing. I hope this makes sense. Can you add more reasons why you would like to procrastinate about writing? I’d love to hear from you. The author is an independent nonfiction content writer. He can be reached at info@johnshalom.com or simply by visiting his author website at johnshalom.com or on Facebook.
Further Readings
- How To Stop Procrastinating—Harvard Business Review.
- 8 Tips To Avoid Procrastination—College Data.