Procrastination-Maybe

Created: Tuesday, 14 April 2015 04:42 | Written by Glen R Stansfield

I was going to write a piece on procrastination, but maybe I will leave that for later.

Seriously, it is something that affects us all, especially writers. I know I have always suffered from it, and my partners have suffered from it. My procrastination that is, not theirs. So, why put off until tomorrow what you can leave until next week?

Often as a writer we sit with the intention of banging out at least a thousand words.

But first we must have a cup of coffee. Maybe I should have a read of the news before I get started. Ah, I need to research a piece on Russian weapons for the chapter I'm not yet writing. And so the list goes on.

The strange thing is that I know I am doing it, but I don't appear to be able to control it. Almost as if another being inside me is making those decisions.

Now there's a thought. Perhaps we have more than one person inside us. After all, talking to yourself wouldn't be necessary if there was only one of you inside that head. It wouldn't be necessary because the one of you in there would already know that thought.  As writers we know there are 'voices' in our heads (and no I don't hear real voices – well maybe one or two from the 'Wee Blighters').

There is so much we don't know about the human mind and the way it works, yet we like to think we do. When studying for my psychology degree, there was a lecturer that blew my mind away with a theory about the way we exist. In a nutshell, he suggested instead of us being isolated minds looking out at the world, we are connected minds, looking in at the world. Pretty heavy stuff for morning reading, but at the time it made sense and it still does to me.

So if I have lost you along the way, I apologise. However, I did achieve my aim of putting off writing a piece about procrastination