Be Kind to Your Future Self

by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig

From everything I’ve seen online through the years, I’d say one of the biggest issues writers face is procrastination. I think the reasons behind the procrastination vary from writer to writer. One of the reasons could be perfectionism: you don’t think you can make the story in your head come alive on the page the way you want it to. Another reason could be the thought of what might seem like an insurmountable task.

I recently read an interesting article about procrastination, which I thought might be helpful for some writers. It was by Hal Hershfield, a behavioral scientist and professor at UCLA. Studies have shown that people who procrastinate have little regard for what was called “their future self.” In other words, present-day John Smith was not considering future John Smith when procrastinating; instead, he was selfishly kicking the can down the road. He was ensuring that his future self would be either stressed out under a deadline, or disappointed by his lack of results.

As Hershfield puts it:

When we’re faced with an unpleasant task—say, folding the laundry or finally making that appointment with the cardiologist—and we decide not to do it, we prioritize our present self’s desire to avoid negative emotions. We get anchored on our feelings in the present. But procrastination presents an additional wrinkle: in putting something off until a later point in time, we’re also failing to consider how much our future self will want to avoid the same negative emotions that we’re trying to avoid right now.

Hershfield interviewed Tim Pychyl, a Canadian psychologist who’s studied procrastination. He asked the professor if he ever engaged in procrastination.

“Almost never! I know my future self isn’t going to want to do this thing any more than my present self does. And I have empathy for my future self: he’s going to be under enormous amounts of stress, so let’s just do this thing now.”

This makes a lot of sense to me. I’ve always been a big believer in making things easy for myself farther down the road. When I put away Christmas decorations, I think about how to make the decorating process easier for myself next year and put favorite ornaments in a Ziplock bag. When I know I’m going to have a crazy day, I’ll put supper together in the slow cooker early in the morning.

The concept works well for writing, too. It could be tough, like any big task, to avoid procrastinating. But if you remind yourself that your future you will be delighted you put in those five or ten minutes a couple of times a week, you might be able to push through the urge to procrastinate.

Are you a procrastinator? How do you combat the urge?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay