So, when I’m not billing hours, I try to do something that makes me happy. Eating good food and watching bad tv shows tend to top that list, but I also enjoy writing. Making up characters and stories that will capture a reader and help them get lost in another world if only for a few moments. I have been writing a book now for almost 4 years. I have gone through many drafts and, right when I thought I knew where I was going with the story, I scrapped the entire thing and started all over again. Some may call me indecisive, I prefer the term perfectionist.
The problem with writing and re-writing the same story on and off for so long is that I find I don’t want to write it anymore. I want to be done with it. I want the story to be finished and the characters to have found the resolution they have been seeking for the last 200 pages. But the story isn’t done, so I have to keep going. So I pick up my computer with every intention of typing until my fingers fall off, but inevitably, something else more entertaining crosses my path. For instance, just now I found an old movie I haven’t seen since I was in middle school (Camp Nowhere from 1994) and I was sucked into something completely unproductive. After that was done, I surfed the web for primary election results and now I’m writing this post.
While I am procrastinating, I feel great. I don’t think of what I should be doing, I just focus on my current task. But I always end up berating myself later for screwing around and wasting so much time. Which I think begs the question – why procrastinate at all? If I had started writing 2 hours ago, I would feel like I had accomplished something today (other than the daily grind at my job). The problem is that there is simply too much distraction. Of course, if I had nothing to distract me, I’m sure I would make up something to do other than what I am supposed to be doing.
So then maybe I should just give in to my procrastinating tendencies. After all, Saved By The Bell is available on Netflix.