Procrastination level: expert

Lately, I have been taking procrastination from a low-level hobby to a goddamn art form.  I’m doing a few editing projects and because they are for clients, they get done on time and they get done well. Score! BUT, the projects I’m working on for myself – pitching articles, writing articles for submission, fiddling around with a second book – these have no deadline, no external accountability, no structure.

So, the procrastination. It has grown and taken over my life. Someone actually needs to give me some sort of trophy for this shit (and if you do, I swear I’ll get around to picking it up and thanking you for it. Eventually. Tomorrow maybe? Early next week for sure.)

The first step to solving a problem is to identify it. Which for me, sounded something like this:
Damn, Madeleine. You are developing a real son-of-a-bitch of a procrastination problem.

And then because I love to research, I decided the best place to start solving this problem was to learn everything ever discovered about procrastinating. That ate up about three weeks. In case you’re interested, the most entertaining (and certainly best-illustrated) explanation of the procrastinating process is Wait, But Why?’s Why Procrastinators Procrastinate .

Read it; the Chaos Monkey and the Panic Monster, they… they are real parts of me. Significant ones. Like, you know that statistic about how people are made up of 70% water? I’m fairly certain I’m 60% Chaos Monkey and 10% Panic Monster. The remaining 30% is just a random assortment of meat, bones, and hair (Note to self: Change Tinder tag line to “30% meat, bones, and hair.” Killing it.)

So the research was enlightening, buuut perhaps unsurprisingly, left me no closer to sorting the issue out.

Then, because the thing I am procrastinating about is writing, (Procrastinating about? That doesn’t sound right. Procrastinating on? Procrastinating at? Note to self: Make “Research how to properly use ‘procrastinating’ in a sentence” my new #1 priority).

Anyway, because the thing I am procrastinating about (?) is writing, I felt that it would be worthwhile to research the daily rituals and writing habits of every writer ever. For reasons. So I bought this book. But it hasn’t come yet and obviously I can’t do anything until it gets here.

Long story short, I need a boss. And some deadlines. Or maybe just someone to dress up as the Panic Monster and come shriek at me in fifteen-minute intervals until I get this shit done?

Anyone?