3 ways to make your procrastination more productive

Procrastination. That topic we return to again and again. We can’t get away from it. All writers are afflicted by it to one degree or another. But should we even be trying to get away from it in the first place? Could a little bit of procrastination actually help us be more productive? Maybe it can… Here are three ways you can make your ‘putting off until tomorrow what you could do today’ time more productive.

Two projects at once

One of the best ways for a writer to make their procrastination more productive is to work on two major writing projects at once. When you’re trying to avoid one of them, work on the other one instead. When the other one needs to be avoided for some reason or another, do something on the first project. You get all of the benefits of procrastination (the sense of doing something a bit illicit, slacking off…) with none of the drawbacks. And you still get to make progress. Hurrah.

Tailor it to your writing

Of course, the other big thing that writers can do to be more productive during hours of procrastination is to tailor the time wasting to your writing. For instance, if you’re procrastinating on your novel, write your blog instead. Don’t want to write your blog? Do some social media promotions. There are always ways we can carry on achieving even as we’re avoiding the elephant in the room for a while.

Give yourself ‘ideas development’ space

Finally, sometimes being productive in other ways just won’t cut it when you’re in need of a good session of procrastination. So don’t be productive. Just be lazy for a bit. Do something entirely different, or do nothing at all. It’s often in our down time that our brains have the space to mull over – consciously or not – ideas that could well inform future projects or help us out of a tight spot on our current project. A bit of idling today could make tomorrow more productive.

So procrastinate away… just not for too long.