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To all the pro and pre-crastinators!

Writer's picture: Tracey LeeTracey Lee


No doubt we are all familiar with our dear friend procrastination. It is the method by which we avoid all things we don’t want to face. It is the put off indefinitely or at least for a while strategy for many of us when we can’t bear to face the hard slog of something. It is ultimately a time-management issue. For authors it can transmogrify into a writers’ block where one may have to fill the creative workspace with other activities. (See the knitting blog of a few weeks ago). I know when I was a teacher marking essays and other student work loomed heavily above the head of the procrastinator. You knew it was about eight hours of relentless correction, re-writing and inventing feedback full of euphemisms and kindnesses that some of the work did not deserve. (Only teachers might appreciate how hard and time consuming it is to write comments worthy of the work presented…the fifty words of the 1000 word essay you presented were mostly syntactically accurate, though generally we encourage formal language in analytical essays. Perhaps Shakespeare was a crap writer who didn’t know his arse from his elbow but that didn’t really answer the question.) Procrastination in this situation reduced the temptation to write for f…’s sake!!!


And there are benefits to procrastination. It encourages less reactive responses (as the one above shows). It allows time to temper the response, reflect and avoid unwanted consequences. Sometimes in the writer’s world it allows for greater thought and depth in the work because you have taken time to walk away and come back to it. You can bring fresh eyes or new point-of-view to the work. In my case procrastination often lends itself to exploration of other ideas. When my major works don’t call to me, I look for inspiration for blogs! It’s a kind of win but not one that really helps me get to the end of the novel I thought I’d have finished by now.  But this is only for short-term procrastination; the longer sort where you avoid the computer, note-books, research and anything else to do with your writing means that literary pearl is not getting done anytime soon.


Am I a procrastinator? Not really…although have flirtations with the concept. Am I more of a pre-crastinator?  And yes that is a thing. One who pre-crastinates is that bothersome individual who wants to get a task done as soon as possible so that the thought of it is eliminated. They are the student who has the opening paragraph written before the teacher has fully explained the task. They make lists and stick to the protocol of working through each item until, before any deadline (self-imposed usually) has been met. They are the get in and do it kind of people.


While the behaviour might avoid the anxiety of missed deadlines or the stress of running out of time it creates a whole other world of emotional tension. Dr. David Rosenbaum coined the term pre-crastination in 2014 and determined that those who don’t delay are poor energy managers. They are the burn out kings and queens. There’s too much attention being paid to the small things, the over stacked ‘to do lists’, the sprint to finish before the word deadline enters anyone else’s head to really be managing all that needs to be done. Pre-crastinators have no understanding of ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’.


So, what am I? Somewhere between the two, I think. Maybe I’m a prioritising prevaricator. I can be evasive and avoid doing the things I should (finish the novel!!) And yet I have more ticks against the things on my lists than I do not. I can be impetuous and at other times putting my head in the sand feels like a survival technique. If it’s your problem then I’m in there fixing it. No problem can outlive my arsenal of Band-Aids, duct tape, hard-won advice or belief that I can repair whatever ails you. If it’s my problem…a more wandering nomadic approach where I roam far and wide to avoid it is my modus operandi.


Either extreme brings its own issues. Some where in the middle lies the best way. Particularly for the writer. At times you just need to get in and write the bejesus out of the project and at other times staring into space and pondering the what ifs is a much better way forward.


The bottom line is…that book is not going to write itself and there is a finite number of tomorrows.


Write on!



I’ve spent my days stringing and restringing my instrument, while the song I came to sing remains unsung.    Rabindranth Tagore

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stclairpenelope
18. Jan.

Good thoughts Tracey


I lije ti do the little jobs so they dont hang over me and it frees up space to fret about the big things i have yet to do

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