Let’s Dissect Procrastination
It’s Tuesday evening and it’s been another supposed day of “work”. Unfortunately, said week of work has been precipitous at best. It’s seemingly the last the beautiful days of summer and it is too easy to just ignore the work and sit outside or visit with my friends instead of actually working. Generally, I’d always rather do those things, but unfortunately, that’s a big problem when dealing with an at-home job – actually doing the work.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here, procrastination is your biggest enemy when you work from home as a freelance writer. You’re going to want to sit around and watch TV or play video games or read a book. The sky is going to clear up and you’ll want to go out and enjoy the weather, or you’ll decide you can wait one more day to finish that big project.
You can’t do those things though and there are a few very good reasons for that. First off, you’re going to have trouble paying your bills if you don’t do a full week’s work. If you have one project to complete in a week and you start it on a Wednesday because you know it only takes three days to complete, you’re shortchanging yourself by a full two days. Most people work full work weeks and now you’re not.
Thus, even those few people who are capable of working whenever there is work in front of them to do are still victims of procrastination. The problem is that when the work is done, it feels alright to finally procrastinate. But, there is still time in the week, so keep on writing.
There are numerous sources of procrastination too. I don’t have immediate advice to give you in regards to how exactly you should overcome the desire to be lazy, but I can tell you this much: don’t work in the same room as an active television, an obnoxious pet, or any unread books. Try to stay offline as much as possible. If you have a laptop, don’t plug a mouse in either, because it’s too easy to start playing video games in your “down time”. Also, try to eat meals at the right times as well, so that you don’t use food as an ample excuse to procrastinate.
Basically, what I’m saying is, I procrastinate a lot and the result is a lot of extra stress for no apparent reason. Of course, I tend to enjoy that extra time I waste as well, so there is an argument for both sides.
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