147. How Pre-crastination Hurts Our Writing Life

Are You a Pre-crastinator? Have you ever heard of the term, pre-crastination? I hadn't and yet, now I know, I am an avid pre-crastinator. When the to-do list is too long, or I'm feeling the tension of deadlines, I tend to act hastily, quickly checking things off my list. And that can cause big problems for writers. Pre-crastination is when we are more focused on getting things done rather than deliberate steps we need to take toward the overall, larger goals. We get wrapped up in the doing without considering if what we are doing really makes sense. This is a time-waster and can diminish our productivity because often we have to come back and start again when we realize the things we were checking off are not applicable to the larger body of work. And, pre-crastinators often make more mistakes--hello, like the email I sent to the wrong editor. Though our tendency toward pre-crastination may have been inherited from our ancient ancestors, now it makes for sloppy, unprofessional, and unclear work. Not traits that are good for writers--or anyone for that matter. With awareness and the tools we cover in this episode, we can break the pre-crastination cycle before it causes big trouble in our work. Get in touch and join the Simply Write community at https://simplywrite.substack.com let us know you've heard the episode and leave a comment about the challenges or successes you are experiencing in your writer's life. We love to hear from you. Thanks for listening. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices