Procrastination is a habit that can affect anyone, not just writers. But because discipline is such an important component of the writer’s life (or anyone with self-set goals in a creative, sometimes wheel-spinning arena), procrastination can be a very damaging habit to cling to.

However, it IS a habit, not a personality trait, and all habits can be changed. Your first step is to stand up and say, Hello, my name is Earl, and I am a Procrastinator. Admit it. There’s no shame in it, and sometimes it can be positive (as I touched on last week). We just want to eliminate it when it is not helpful, by replacing the habit of procrastinating with the habit of working.

The most important step in tackling any procrastination, no matter the cause, is to just get started. Even if it’s five minutes, making a start gets you over the first mental hurdle, and is the keystone to breaking the procrastination habit (remember: habit, not character trait).

How you force yourself to make that start is up to you, but working out why you’re procrastinating is a useful first step. Think about the task you’re avoiding, and acknowledge your first emotional reaction. It might be dread, fear of failure, stress or anxiety, or indecision and so on. Whatever reason you then consciously come up with, it is this first, emotional, reaction that is causing you to procrastinate. Now you know the reason why, you can consider strategies.

Probably the most widespread reason for procrastination is simply that you are not looking forward to doing the task because it’s difficult or boring or imposed by others. I do this when it comes time to write plot summaries, which I hate doing; I also procrastinate on phone calls for this reason.

In this instance, you can bite off the frog’s head, to mix metaphors, and just get it over and done with. Focus on how happy and accomplished you’ll feel when the unpleasantness is over. For a longer task, promise yourself you’ll work on it for just ten minutes before allowing yourself to stop. If that short prospect doesn’t tempt you, a tangible reward like chocolate or an episode of a favourite TV show might be enough to bribe you. The task is usually quicker and less unpleasant than your imagination pretends it is, and then it’s over and you can focus on other things.

A common reason for procrastination for writers is that feeling of terror when faced with producing 300 pages out of the single glowing blank page currently burning itself into your eyeballs. The task can feel so overwhelming that you can’t even start it. I can’t say better than Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird: one bird at a time, one word at a time. Break the task (the book) down into bite-sized piece: a chapter, a scene, a page, a paragraph. Maybe you can’t write 300 pages. But you can write half a page. In 600 days, that’ll be 300 pages.

Fear of failure (second-book-itis, for those who had an first-book success, for example; or, for me this week, worrying the third draft is not going to be any better than the previous drafts) and perfectionism can both create anxiety and stress just as much as the overwhelming thought of all those pages. In both cases, you need to talk yourself out of it: use positive affirmations and visualise your own success; remind yourself that no-one’s perfect and your not-good-enough is everyone else’s fit-for-purpose.

Indecision caused me to procrastinate on publishing my self-help guide to moving overseas, Continental Shift for almost a year (fortunately, I was procrastinating by writing another book, so all’s well). The way to tackle the feeling of paralysis that comes from not being able to decide how to proceed is to lay out the options and their pros and cons, and set a deadline for deciding on which way to go. Once the decision’s made, stick to it (research shows we’re happier once we commit, as a sort of self-defence mechanism whereby our brain tells us we must be happy with the decision because the decision can’t be changed now).

Then there’s procrastination from being borderline (or actually) ADHD…a distractible soul who would like to sit down and get things done but keeps remembering all those other things that also need to be done. Here, list your tasks, prioritise them, and set blocks of time to work on each of them. Eliminate distractions by, for example, unplugging the phone, disconnecting the internet and closing the door. As you feel your concentration begin to lag, make yourself complete just one more tiny little task before you flit off. Concentration can be improved with time and practice.

One more thing…what if your procrastination is caused by the unpleasantness of the task, that most common procrastination bugbear…and that task is writing in general? If you’re not engaged by writing, if the work is not to your satisfaction, if you like being a writer more than writing, you can’t get motivated by it…it’s okay. Change projects – try fiction instead of non-fiction, romance novels instead of thrillers, travel writing instead of technical writing – or change hobbies/careers. Procrastinate yourself right into something that is motivating, engaging and satisfying.