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Technically speaking, I’m not procrastinating – and I have a red wordcount bar to show for it. Down there, in the left bar – see? To make a long story short, let’s say I gave myself a goal of 1500 words-per-day, and nine thousand and something words in five days means I’ve been meeting it, and then some.
Therefore, no: technically speaking, I’m not procrastinating.
Still, what do you call it when you tweak commas, and make yourself multiple cups of tea, and hunt for designs of Tudor mullioned windows through the Internet, and check your email again and again, and re-read an old play to make sure you are not recycling ideas too shamelessly, and mind your novel-related board on Pinterest, and plan what you’ll be writing between first and second draft, and do all sorts of things until you have an hour (or less) left before rehearsals/dinner/class/work/whatever – and then, in that hour (or less), pound out eight or nine hundred rather nice words?
And then you repeat the proceedings a couple of times a day, and end up breezing past your daily goal – all in panicky or sulky one-hour spurts of activity…
Yes, tell me: what do you call it, exactly?
I’m beginning to fancy “Microprocrastination” as a name – and yes, it seems to work at some level, and no, this doesn’t make it any less foolish and irritating. Because work it may, but in a this higgledy-piggledy way… There may be a method to my madness, but madness it is.
At whatever time I call it a night, I cannot see my met-and-exceeded daily goal without wondering : what if I had written all the time? What of the hour I squandered over those cursed windows? What if I had written instead of pinning like mad? 
Hence, I manage to write at a fairly reasonable pace, and be frustrated at the same time. I don’t procrastinate, and I do. I need to be under pressure, but I only manage to create the artificial pressure a couple of times a day… And believe me, I don’t feel spectacularly sane, when I watch myself writing things like this.
Ah well. What about you? I won’t ask whether you procrastinate – please, leave me with the fond delusion that everyone procrastinate at least a little, at least sometimes. What I ask is: how do you procrastinate? And do you ever microprocrastinate?
Related articles
- Incredible Benefits of Procrastination: How Wasting Time Saves Time (prettyopinionated.com)
- Is There Wisdom in Procrastination (brainspeak.com)
- Procrastination Slowing You Down? 5 Tips to Find Time! (thetimefinder.com)
- Procrastinate Productively Quote (digitalcitizen.ca)
Scribblings 
I’m wasting an awful lot of time – and deadlines are looming closer.
In part it’s because of practicalities.
In part comes from sharing my house with people that have no respect for what I do, so they’ll just plain do whatever they please, and why should it interfere with what I do? After all what am I doing? Playing with the computer, right?
So yes – more research, some revision on the run, checking Pinterest and Facebook…
Thank goodness, as usual when I write, I’m getting increasing bouts of insomnia, so in the heat of the night, I sort of catch up with my schedules. Sort of.
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These past few days I’ve done my fair share of night writing, but I’m lucky.
My family… well, they do try allowing me writing space – they just find it a litle hard.
But my luck comes in the shape of a really huge house, meaning that, when worse comes to worst, I can pack up my laptop, books and binders, and migrate to some quieter corner.
It works better in warm weather – because in winter less than half the rooms are heated for human comfort, but still.
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