NaNo Prep: 3 Tips for Conquering Procrastination

As November draws closer, the dreaded specter of that arch-enemy, procrastination, looms ever larger. Luckily, author Phyllis Korkki is an expert on how to defeat the procrastination monster in order to finish your creative projects on time:

I’m excited to participate in NaNoWriMo this year because it embodies the spirit of my book, The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even if You’re a Lazy, Self-Doubting Procrastinator Like Me. In fact, I interviewed Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, for my book because his story is so inspiring. He recounted to me how he sent an email to some friends in 1999, inviting them to join him in writing a novel in a month. Twenty people joined him that year. Now, hundreds of thousands of people around the world participate in NaNoWriMo.

As I point out in my book, we tend to procrastinate on big personal projects like writing a novel because no one else is asking for them, and we believe our future selves will get the work done. Meanwhile, our present selves work on something that is easier or more pleasant, or that another person is demanding that we finish by a certain deadline. But guess what? All too often, our future selves fail to come through for us, and we never finish our cherished creative project.

NaNoWriMo removes several major obstacles that prevent you from doing this great, scary, unique thing: 

It gives you a deadline where none existed before. 
It creates outside accountability.  
It encourages you to accept–no, to embrace!–imperfection.

As you prepare for your November adventure, I offer these words of advice to help carry you through to 50,000 words:

1. Find an accountability buddy.

Figure out now where other participants are gathering, and use that community to help hold yourself accountable. Find a NaNoWriMo accountability buddy–either in person or online–whom you can text, email or call each day to egg each other on. Or, do something I did while writing my book–pay someone to call you every day to encourage you to write, and have them check back later to make sure you’ve done it. (I found someone–she turned out to be a dairy farmer in Washington state–by posting an ad on Craigslist.)

2. The hardest part is to start.

Repeat after me, now and each morning: The hardest part is to start. That space between not doing and doing can stretch into infinity if you don’t put tremendous effort into starting. What’s wonderful is that once you start, the power of inertia–the force that causes you to lollygag, loaf, and generally avoid writing–magically turns in the opposite direction and keeps you working. 

3. “Don’t get it right, just get it written.”

Each day as you write your allotted 1,577 words, repeat after me: “This is bad – really bad.” Variations: “This is horrible.” “I am so embarrassed by this mess.” “These characters are so wooden they could be used as kindling.” “This doesn’t make any sense!” As Chris Baty told me: “Don’t get it right, just get it written. Be assured: It’s going to be bad.” Too often our own “crippling expectations for quality” hold us back, he said.

Relinquishing some glimmering idea of perfection can give you great freedom and energy. Remember, you never have to show your writing to anyone, and it may turn out to be better than you realize–or be the basis for something great down the road. The point, above all, is just to do it, and that is what makes NaNoWriMo so powerful.

Phyllis Korkki is an assignment editor and reporter for the New York Times Sunday Business section and the author of The Big Thing: How to Complete Your Creative Project Even if You’re a Lazy, Self-doubting Procrastinator Like Me (Harper). She is from Minnesota and previously worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. She lives in Brooklyn.