The Best Ways to Procrastinate Instead of Writing

What does it look like when a writer writes?

The dream: You sit down at your computer. Your fingers fly over the keyboard. Brilliance emerges. The end!

The reality: The cursor blinks. You think about what to write. You decide to think about snacks instead. You can only eat so many snacks. Maybe it’s time to organize your sock drawer? 

We’ve all been there. 

We writers know that often our biggest obstacle is ourselves. In this blog post, we’re going to take a lighthearted look at the ways that writers procrastinate. 

But it’s not just for fun! We’ll also look at how to make the urge to procrastinate work for you instead of against you. 

Just One More Chapter

You’re a writer, so you love a good story. But then “just one chapter” turns into “just the rest of this book,” and “just one more episode” turns into a five-hour Netflix marathon. Stories are fun! They immerse us and enchant us. It feels good… until we realize that we have to play catch up with our writing. We end up reading or watching everyone else’s stories, but when will we write our own?

Make it work for you:

Your story obsession can supercharge your writing. Just turn your reading or watching into studying! And it can be fun. 

If there’s a problem that you’re facing in your writing (like how to manage multiple timelines), you could read or watch a story that did it well (like The Night Circus!) and take notes on how the writer approached what you’re trying to do. 

But that’s if you go into your story binge with an intention. What if you’re already mid-episode? Or emerging bleary-eyed from your blanket fort after you finished the whole series?

Then it’s time to reflect on what you just read or watched. Think about what you can learn from the story, and take notes so that you can remember its lessons. 

For some stories, a few notes on what they did well and what you would have changed will be all you need. If you love a story, though, it might be a candidate for an in-depth masterwork study to help you understand it inside out. 

However you choose to study, experiencing stories will make you a better writer. 

The Cleaning Frenzy

My house is never cleaner than when I have something to write. How about you? When we writers are procrastinating, we find ourselves with a sudden urge to clean our workspace. It may start as small as organizing your pens, but it turns into a full-blown cleaning frenzy that extends to the entire house. Before you know it, the day is gone, and you’ve got a cleaner workspace, but zero word count.

Make it work for you:

Look, sometimes you do need to clear a path to help your future work. Are you polishing a gleaming countertop for the fifth time today? Ok, stop that. But are you clearing actual clutter from your desk? (I’m looking at you, mountain of coffee cups.)

That might be just what you need to get into your productivity zone in your next writing session. Try focusing on what you need from the space to have it support your writing practice. When you have a clear vision of what you want to achieve with your cleaning energy, you can make sure it’s working to support your future success instead of standing in your way.

The Snack Attack

It's late at night, and you've been working on your novel for hours. Suddenly, you feel a hunger twinge, and you wander to the kitchen in search of distraction sustenance. An hour later, you're surrounded by empty wrappers, your keyboard is coated in crumbs, and you're no closer to the end of your manuscript. But hey, at least your stomach is full, right?

Writing requires mental energy, and when we procrastinate, we rationalize our cravings. We tell ourselves that we deserve a snack break while scrolling through our social media feeds. The next thing we know, we end up surrounded by crumbs and wrappers, contemplating how to write when we feel like we can’t move.

Make it work for you:

Snacks don’t just fuel your body -- they can fuel your imagination! One of the most powerful, and sadly underused, writing techniques is multisensory description. Often, writers rely too much on describing how things look, but describing how the story sounds, feels, smells, and even tastes can immerse your reader in your story. To exercise this, slow down and savor your snacks. Then write down a description of your snack using each sense. Will the sharp crackle or the salty burst of a chocolate-covered pretzel make it into your next scene?

(Be right back! Getting some writing fuel…)
…

Ok! Let’s take a look at one more way to procrastinate.

The Sudden Interest in Everything

You need to fact-check one tiny detail for your story. A simple Google search later, and you find yourself knee-deep in articles about the mating habits of sea otters, the history of the Ottoman Empire, and the top ten reasons why people hate Brussels sprouts. You emerge from the rabbit hole three hours later, more knowledgeable about the world but no closer to completing your manuscript.

When writers procrastinate, we become interested in everything except writing. We find ourselves researching all our curiosities, and coming up with brand new (and clearly super important and urgent) interests, instead of writing about the topic that we were supposed to be working on. 

Make it work for you:

Let’s put a spin on it. Distraction can be research!

Maybe your rabbit hole will lead to your next great idea, or your next 50 great ideas.

This method of procrastination can actually be a great way to practice one of the hardest skills for writers to develop: letting go. It is so common to get attached to your work-in-progress and feel like that’s the only story for you. Or to feel like you’re cheating if you write anything other than what you “should” be working on.

Really, though, letting go of that focus and working on a wide range of projects can supercharge your craft development.

One of my clients did a 100-day project in which he wrote 500 words every single day, targeted toward practicing different skills. Every day he worked with new characters, new settings, new genres. At the end, he was completely transformed as a writer — and amazingly, his ability to sit down and write a passage without getting hung up on it cured his procrastination!

Sometimes, you might just find the solution to procrastination right in the midst of it.

I hope you have a ton of great ideas about how to procrastinate instead of writing.

Maybe you even procrastinated by reading this article!

Procrastinating is an art form, especially for writers.

But it’s important to remember that taking a break and having fun is a great way to recharge your creativity. Life is about balance, after all.

So, when the words refuse to flow, don’t beat yourself up. Instead, try to have fun with your procrastination rituals by making them work for you.

If you follow the strategies in this article, procrastinating can actually make your next writing session easier. So consider this permission to recharge, relax… and then get back to writing.