Procrastination and Writing: Four Snares That Stop the Flow

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

If I admit that I procrastinated writing this story about procrastination, that might be ironic, yet true. Procrastination. Just reading that word makes me want to wait until later. I’ll do anything other than this task at hand. Yet, like all writers who stave off the inevitable, I must write.

What is writing procrastination and what causes it? I’ve learned a lot about this topic through self-observation of my own process, as well as being a writing retreat leader and coach helping thousands of struggling, hopeful writers. It’s time to give this topic the attention it deserves.

What are the root causes of procrastination?

I want to acknowledge that if you could have gotten that book or writing project done by now, you would have. No one enjoys the agitation and self-judgment that comes with procrastination. No one wants to be caught in an endlessly-looping mental quagmire of What’s-wrong-with-me? I need to/have to/should have by now.

The reason why many quick-fix writing programs don’t work — e.g., Write a best-selling book in 30 days! — is because they’re superficial; they impose false, unrealistic promises to psychologically target your pain-point of procrastination. However, such impositions don’t address a labyrinth of underlying struggles of why you might be stuck and unable to write.

Root causes for procrastination are complex, and real. While many think the act of writing only comes from our will or mental discipline to impose ideas onto a page, expression involves much more. Although these layers may intermingle and co-conspire, procrastination and writing blocks derive from four primary areas: mental, emotional, spiritual, and tactical snares.

Mental snares

Mental snares are persistent, intrusive thoughts about all sorts of things. We’ve had a lifetime amassing unrealistic, skewed thoughts about what writing is, what it should be, what kind of writers we are or aren’t, how we compare against false measuring sticks of others and their work, what we think we should be writing versus what we actually want to write, writing for projected audiences that may or may not exist, and ping-ponging between realizing deep desires and struggling with deep doubt.

With all these thoughts brazenly parading through a mind before it even gets started putting words to a page, who’d want to try?

In the work I do, I help people UNlearn what they’ve learned about writing. This UNlearning takes time, care, and cultivation, yet it’s perhaps one of the biggest steps forward away from procrastination’s chokehold. By thinking about writing in new ways, as a prospective collaborative relationship, we make room for what I call “the possibility of possibility.” When you can embrace what writing offers with trust, open to what it can teach you and how writing feels when it’s free, you can experience the freedom of words more and destructive rhetoric less. We can see a glimpse into a way of writing without struggle, doubt, or fear.

Ask yourself: What are my thoughts about writing? How do you know what you know about writing? What are the origins of your current thoughts, beliefs, doubts, or struggles? Can you begin to imagine your writing as a relationship? One that needs care, time, and trust to feel safe to blossom?

Emotional snares

In this realm, I invite clients to look at how they feel about writing. Do you feel inadequate? Do you worry about emotions that might appear if you get too deep into a painful or challenging topic? Do you experience anger or sadness when you let yourself down by not meeting falsely construed writing expectations? Are you trying to avoid hurting another’s feelings with what you share or express? Do you wonder if your story is worth telling?

These questions of worth, value, impact, backlash, or even the accomplishment of realizing a major dream — such as completing a book — dwell in emotional aquifers. If you’re attempting to write while conflicted feelings subconsciously run amok, there could be too much overwhelm to identify. There would be no incentive to begin writing when emotional stakes are so embedded. Thus, you do nothing. I get it.

Ask yourself: Can I identify how I feel about writing? What happens to your emotional being when you write? What happens when you procrastinate? Can you discern between your thoughts and feelings related to writing when you feel stuck? With my clients, being able to identify the swirl of emotions and where they land in the body while dealing with creative struggles can make a difference in opening a pathway forward.

Spiritual snares

Yes, there are many forms of writing we do each day. Professional emails, proposals, letters, articles, blog posts, or perhaps working on a fiction or nonfiction book project. Not all writing comes from our deepest creative expression. Sometimes, it is a matter of function over form.

And yet, no matter the function, through the creative process of writing, we’re allowing a part of ourselves to go from hidden to seen; from imagined to realized; from thought to expression. There’s something magical at work here. The contemplation of ideas, the search for imagery and corresponding formation of words is, in fact, a spiritual process. Writing is a birthing of our being-ness.

I call this mysterious magical place where writing derives from our “you-ness.” There’s a whole philosophy I have that goes with this concept and teaching that takes time to unpack and understand.

What is you-ness?

For now, I can share that you-ness is that place within where the purest version of your deepest expression, discoveries, creativity, reflections, and memories exist, absent of your thoughts or feelings. For me, calling it a “soul” or “spirit” implies some prior mental cognition or correlation to what this place is. The writing freedom I experience and teach others, absent of procrastination, is related to the you-ness. But no matter: call this place whatever holds meaning for you.

My point here is that sometimes we’re not familiar with, nor in sync with, our you-ness thanks to the mental and emotional barriers. It’s hard to hear our deeper truths or explore expansiveness with expression when we don’t make room for our Selves.

We’re filled to the brim with daily details, we keep our Selves disassociated by scrolling cat videos, we may not spend enough time in nature, and it’s hard to listen to our you-ness when we’re so busy doing. By going back to the writing-as-a-relationship theory, we can invite our Selves into more space and time. This is where trust happens and inspiration to express begins.

Ask yourself: When I sit and write, am I truly showing up for my Self, and listening, or am I doing other things at the same time? Are you writing on a computer where it’s easy to procrastinate by checking emails every five minutes? Are you writing in the same space where you work? Can you designate a separate space just to write? Have you tried to write with pen and paper instead of keyboard?

Tactical snares

Another culprit that contributes to procrastination is the plain-old tactical overwhelm that accompanies a spiritual or creative desire to write. These are just the straight-up questions that overwhelm like a tsunami related to logistics: how to outline ideas; how to organize what you want to say; where to begin when there are so many pieces to a story’s puzzle; should you write during the day or at night? Does there need to be a strict formula? How will my work get edited? Sometimes there are so many tactical elements surrounding writing, they can become head-spinning. These usually stop a writer from moving forward.

The one invitation I can offer to offset or abate a tactical procrastination storm is to identify what kind of writer you are. The more you understand how you create, how you reflect, and how you internalize and process ideas and inspiration, the better-suited you will be to attend to your writing desires; your writing flow; your writing rhythm.

What works for you?

Just because there are a million experts out there, a million methods, a million ways of being told how writing should be done, the truth is that none of them may work for YOU. You may not be a morning writer. You may not be an everyday writer. Trying to follow an incongruent approach will inevitably prompt procrastination. If you can’t feel it, or it doesn’t jive, that’s something to know.

Ask yourself: What are the tactical writing elements that keep me from moving forward? What do you not know and what do you need to know about your process or approach? What emotional or creative approaches inspire you?

Well, we did it! I wrote this piece and you read this piece. Neither of us procrastinated in doing so. I feel rewarded because even in the writing of it, I am reminded of the mental, emotional, spiritual, and tactical snares that can prevent me from expression. I hope these reflections help open your writing as a moment of now, instead of maybe later.