Stop Putting It Off! - Top Tips To Help Beat Procrastination

Come on, we are all guilty of it. Always finding a reason not to do the things we should be doing right now.

Why do we do it?  Thinkers philosophers and psychologists come up with many reasons why you and I don't do the things we need to attend to that can help us achieve more in our life, and our carreer goals.

A common one, especially in the music business is 'Fear of Success'.  Writer Steve Pavlina gives a good explanation on this aspect here,

Fear of success can be far more insidious because it’s almost always unconscious. But it’s not fear of success itself that is the problem but rather fear of the side effects of success, many of which may be genuinely unwanted. Fears that are never evaluated consciously have a tendency to grow stronger. The reason is simple behavioral conditioning — when you avoid something you fear (either consciously or subconsciously), you automatically reinforce the avoidance behavior. So when you (even unknowingly) avoid working on your goal because of a hidden fear of success, you actually reinforce the habit of procrastination, so as time goes by, it becomes harder and harder to get yourself to take action. Insidious!

It's like a self destruct button that completely screws things up, months, years of work completely wasted because of an inabilty to act when you need to.  It is a form of self sabotage that you as an artist can really do without, and if you suffer from bouts of procrastination there are ways you can beat it.

I did a bit more research on the subject and found this very interesting article with a whole bunch of cool explanations and tips on dealing with it. Leo Babauta wrote this for DesignTaxi.com, which i think is relevent for all creative types. My favourite tip from him follows....

Enjoy the process. When we dread something, we put it off—but instead, if we can learn to enjoy it, it won’t be as hard or dreadful. Put yourself in the moment, and enjoy every action. For example, if you want to go out to run, don’t think about the hard run ahead, but about putting on your shoes—enjoy the simplicity of that action. Then focus on getting out the door—that’s not hard. Then focus on warming up with a fast walk or light jog—that can be nice and enjoyable. Then feel your legs warm up as you start running a little faster, and enjoy the beautiful outdoors. This process can be done with anything, from washing dishes to reading to writing. Enjoy yourself in the moment, without thinking of future things you dread, and the activity can be very pleasant and even fun. And if it is, you won’t put it off.

You can read the full article here

Links

http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2004/12/fear-of-success-what-will-happen-if-you-succeed/

 

http://designtaxi.com/article/101868/The-Little-Book-Of-Procrastination-Remedies/

How To Keep Your Creative Juices Flowing

Most musicians have been there... that frustrating moment when you just cant seem to get past a certain point, where you feel everything you create is rubbish, where you cant find that missing peice, that melodic resolve, that final hook, or perfect lyric.

Keeping the creative juices flowing is just as much a disipline as the learning an instrument, a disipline that can easily get forgotten as the pressure of a deadline approaches. Recently i have discovered that two musician friends of mine have been shedding light on this subject, giving some very cool tips on how to deal with those dry moments of 'writers block'.

Steve Hillier ( music producer and tutor, and the man behind Dubstar ) has written this excellent article on the Point Blank Music School blog given you '10 Ways To Overcome Writers Block'. 

My favourite tip from Steve is...

Make connections between ideas and styles that don’t currently exist. You could argue that’s all creativity is, finding new ways of combining ideas and concepts and discovering new developments. So do it, and don’t forget the Vulcan philosophy of ‘Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations’. It proved useful in many tricky situations on the Starship Enterprise, it might help you too.

You can check out his other tips in the full article here.

Hit making house music producer Mike Monday, currently now living down under in Australia, says this about how he realised he could tackle the problem of no inspiration.

When I wrote and played music my “inspiration” was sporadic and I thought it came along randomly.

But when it did, WOW! The music just flowed through me. It didn’t seem like work, it was almost completely effortless.

So as time went on I got increasingly obsessed with what made the difference between “inspired Mike” and “stuck Mike”. How could the same person who’d knocked out a tune so easily one day be procrastinating, fearful and dithering the next?

Same guy - totally different results. And I started noticing certain patterns and strategies in my thought, words and actions that seemed to make a difference. But I still couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Then, about a year ago I discovered a methodology that fitted and expanded upon what I had noticed in myself. There were certain things that I was doing when inspired, loving it and hyper-productive, and not doing when bored, struggling and stuck. I tried these techniques on myself and it worked like a dream. I then started trying it on others and it did the same.

He has a website now on the subject helping musicians to deal with those uninspired moments here.

 

Links

http://www.pointblankonline.net/blog/10-ways-to-overcome-writers-block/

http://www.mikemonday.com/