08 September 2011

Bad Habit #1: Procrastination

So, this weekend I am moderating a few panels at the Write-Brained Network's first writing conference. While I am honored to be doing it, I'm scared stiff. This is, like, my first to-do as a "real" writer.

Obviously I'm nervous as heck and I am doing everything in my power to procrastinate.

As this is my third job (mom first, teacher second, writer third) I find it very easy to procrastinate. For example:

Scenario #1
Me: Hey, hubby. I've got a conference to prepare for.
Hubby: Awesome. The boys need food. They also need diapers and wipes.
Me: Oh, a shopping trip. Also, the house needs to be cleaned. I have blog post to write. I have slush to read for my interning position. And my WIP is really screaming my name.

Scenario #2
Me: Hey, hubby. I've got a conference to prepare for.
Hubby: It's sunny outside.
Me: Oh, we could go for a walk. And I could do some weeding. What about working on the chicken coop or scrubbing out the rain barrels. I've always wanted to learn how to build a fence...

Scenario #3
Me: Hey, hubby. I've got a conference to prepare for.
Hubby: Do you have anything you need to get ready for school?
Me: Oh, I have three books to read. Ninety book reports to grade. Ninety essays to grade. Some reading tests to score. Also, I think I might design an entire year's curriculum around dystopian adolescent literature.

Scenario #4
Me: Hey, hubby. I've got a conference to prepare for.
Hubby: I'm going to get on the internet.
Me: Oh, I wonder if CNN changed its top news stories yet. What about Facebook--have any of my friends updated. Oh and Twitter--there's a #YALitchat conversation happening tonight. I have three more stations I need to create on Pandora and one is for my WIP so it is muy important!

See? It's SOOOOOOOO easy to procrastinate, and I don't even have television!

What are your procrastination techniques?

4 comments:

Wendy said...

Here is how I pretend I don't procrastinate: a couple of years ago at a Mid-Atlantic SCBWI conference, we had a great speaker (from Australia - anyone remember the name?) who told us our brains need to settle our alpha patterns before we get started. So I tell myself that checking e-mail/FB before writing is my alpha pattern time. (At the same time, I DO usually start writing afterward!)

Ella Slayne said...

LOL - great post! Facebook is a one of my worst! Oh and watching naff daytime telly and pretending it's research! ;-)

jeff7salter said...

I think I lose at least a couple of hours each morning ... piddling on FB & e-mail and checking the Internet headlines.

Leslie Ellen Wynn (Morrissette) said...

Let me count the ways . . .

My biggest, however, is spent writing stories on my blog.
"Oh, I have to write about that before I forget!"
And, I can write about anything from my 15 year old son emptying the dishwasher and breaking ( not one, but two ) glasses, to the amount of gray hairs I plucked this morning!
I spend WAY to much time writing about nothing at all.
http://blog.becoming-me.us/