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Wednesday, June 14, 2006

 

Procrastination Chicken

Realized that I am becoming totally obsessed by the book! All I can think about is (say it out loud to yourself, you'll get the idea) "book, book, book, aaaahhhh, book, BOOK!" It's like there is a chicken living in my head. It has had the effect of getting me up to 44,000 words in 5 weeks, but I can't live like this any more!

So that is why I hired myself a brand new fantastic coach, Zoey Ryan, to kick myself back into gear with all the other fabulous things that I love to do - like write my blog. I really miss hearing the comments and feedback, good or bad, on what I'm up to. I also love to get out into the world and meet new people, sparking unexpected connections and ideas. If I'm a chicken, then focusing on the book as my single strategy to get my experience and passion out there into the world is really putting all my precious eggs in one basket.

What has been happening is that I have used the book as a very sneaky type of procrastination strategy, as I realized when talking to Zoey today. It's easy to avoid doing anything when I am telling myself that as soon as I finish the book, things will magically change. I will become a world-recognized expert, instant riches will drop from the skies, I will be interviewed on Oprah, and I will feel like blogging again. I'm actually quite impressed with myself for coming up with something so creative. Clearly, I am also a gifted procrastinator. And in some ways, it's true - there is only so much typing a girl can do in one day.

My favourite anti-procrastination strategy is pretty effective - all I have to do is think of something that needs doing (like cleaning, or accounting, or phoning my relatives) that I want to do even less than the thing I'm procrastinating about. In this case, the last thing I want to do is fail in a commitment I made to my brand new coach. The power of coaching, happening right before your eyes!

It's good to be back.

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Comments:
Yay! Welcome back! My favorite anti-procrastination book is The Now Habit. I changed how I worked during my second year of grad school and it was so much better, and I needed it again for work.

Good luck with your book! I want to write a book this year too.
 
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