The P Word

Putting it off by Lesley Hargreaves

I am thinking that, like most writers, you suffer from procrastination. Actually, maybe you don't. Maybe you are on it all the time. Maybe your bullet list is ticked off and you are out and about with the sun on your face, drinking coffee with friends, knowing that everything that needs to be done is, indeed, done. If that is so, then there is probably no one I admire than your good self. I am a serial procrastinator, but usually, I do get there in the end (or just before the end/deadline).

Writing for me is one of the easiest things to put off. Often, I am not working to a deadline. The people I blog for will forgive me if I miss a post. In fact, if I explain why I missed, they will do more than forgive me - they will pray for me. Win/Win! However, this is not a healthy way to approach writing and indeed, life. This needed sorting and, if I were to be more productive, I had to look at changing my ways. I'm not there yet, but these are some of the hints and the facts that I am learning that are helping me. 

My favourite console game is Two Point Hospital, which I play on the Switch (see above). In it, the player re-creates hospitals in various scenarios and runs them as a kind of administrator. I love playing it, and if my husband is raising an ironic eyebrow at this point because we are talking about procrastination and I have lost quite a few hours to this game, then I am choosing to ignore him, and so should you. I have recently noticed that, if I push my staff too hard, if they don't get enough rest or need a drink or food, and I don't provide that, then they will simply grind to a halt. It's probably a glitch in the game, but if my little medical person isn't looked after properly and their basic needs aren't met, it can get to a point of no return, and they just stand in their office swaying slightly, unable to respond to any instructions. 

I thought about this recently when I found something online that said that there was a direct line between burnout and procrastination. Not that procrastination causes burnout, but the other way around, and that putting things off again and again can be a symptom of burnout, even though you would think that getting stuff done would be helpful. 

It's possible that if I am struggling to find the time or the inclination to write or research, then the point to start at is to look at everything else instead. Am I rested? Am I eating well? Is it well with my soul? I know this isn't much like George Orwell writing Nineteen Eighty-Four between bouts of TB on Jura, but I don't suppose he had as many distractions as we do. For me, I am finding that my writing life is more productive when I am on a reasonably even keel, and I find ideas easier to come across when I'm not overwhelmed. 

Then I read a book. Always to be encouraged for a writer, I think. It's not a Christian book. In fact, it has a very secular approach to "getting it all done". Because it says that you can't - get it all done - that is. In Oliver Burkeman's book Four Thousand Weeks, he says that we simply cannot get everything done in the time that is allotted to us. Burkman reckons that we can only reasonably expect to live up to Four Thousand weeks on this earth. (I'd advise you not to count where you are up to. It will only depress you.)  This is meant to help us prioritise the things that we really, REALLY want to get done, knowing that we none of us have forever to do everything. Therefore, if I want to write more, I will not just need to organise better. I will need to actually put things down. 

Perhaps the most well-known part of the Message Translation is from Matthew 11:28, maybe because so many of us feel like this. Or maybe because God knows the importance of being rested. God gets it. I need to get it as well.

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion?...I'll show you how to take a real rest. 

Lesley blogs at https://wrinklymartha.blogspot.com