How I overcame procrastination and published a book

For years I had the intention to write a book, but it didn’t happen. And I didn’t even fully realize it wasn’t happening until one day I saw Tim Urban’s Ted Talk Inside the mind of a master procrastinator.

Before watching his presentation I didn’t consider myself a procrastinator. I don’t have problems with deadlines, I can even plan and work ahead. But when there’s no deadline, Tim Urban explains there is no panic monster to call us to action and get things done. And that’s how wanting to write a book and even occasionally working on it, after 15 years still didn’t result in anything.

So why was I not writing the book? Was it really just a missing deadline or was there more? I mean there’s so many things that I do even without a deadline. So why not this? I realized that to overcome my procrastination I had to first understand better why I was procrastinating in the first place.

After careful self-reflection I came up with these three main causes.

1. There were always other priorities From finishing my studies to starting a new job, from moving to different places to starting a family, there were always other things more important. And since the book wasn’t urgent, there was always time to postpone it a little more.
2. Writing a book is difficult It’s not a simple task that you can just finish in a few hours or even days. The time commitment needed to finish this project was huge. And that conflicted with everything else in my already busy schedule. Plus difficult work means hard work. Finding a way to keep me motivated to do this hard work over an extended period of time was an additional challenge.
3. I’m a perfectionist I didn’t realize for a long time just how much this was holding me back. I didn’t just want to write a book, the perfectionist in me wanted to write the best book ever. A book that would sell internationally, would win prestigious prices, and ultimately would be filmed in Hollywood. In short, I made an already difficult task harder. And that resulted in a writer’s block and even more procrastination.

The next step was to find solutions. In reality, it was a learning process with trial and error, but I’ll just stick to what actually helped.

?

1. Involve other people In one of my workshops for early stage researchers we cover Time & Self-Management. In it we discuss how different tips can help to overcome procrastination. I used to illustrate how these tips were helping me to pick up writing my book. When I noticed they liked that example, I asked them for a favor: "Next time you see me, ask me how I’m doing with my book." As I do this workshop on a regular basis and I see these researchers in other workshops as well, after a while virtually every day people were asking about my book. It resulted in a gentle pressure for me to make sure that on a regular basis, I could report progress.
2. Don’t let the perfectionist write the book I was unable to live up to my own self-imposed, unrealistic expectations. The biggest problem was that because of this I was creating a story that was way to complex. In one of my first chapters I even had a flashback in a flashback. It wasn’t helping me, but neither did it help the story or the readers. It became clear to me that I had to lower my expectations and find out what I really wanted: to write a book and get it published.I still needed to produce quality, but once the stress that it had to be the best book ever written fell off, it became so much more doable. And that led to action.
3. Find a routine that works Working on the book whenever I had the time, the energy and the motivation – in short – when the time was right, didn’t work. It resulted in long intervals where I didn’t write, forgot what I wrote, changed my mind on the plot, the style, the characters,… Each time it felt like I had to start all over. To overcome this problem I needed to find ways to write regularly in a productive way so that I would feel I was making progress. An agile inspired approach while at the same time blocking a few writing days every few months turned out to work best for me. I would use the time in between writing session to brainstorm ideas for the next. This way, by the time I would have time to start writing, I would have a rough idea how the chapter should be.Then I just started writing. I didn’t overthink perfect formulations, didn’t even consider punctuation and what not. I just wanted to write down as many words as possible in a short amount of time. But in the same few days I would reread what I had and gradually start improving it. Usually after 3 days, that led to a finished chapter.
4. Get supportive feedback Next to asking people to ask me about my book, I also needed people to provide regular feedback on my work. To help me think about the story arc, the characters, to challenge me on ideas I had, to help me make choices and so much more. The support I got from these people was crucial to be able to deal with all the challenging aspects of writing a book and getting it published.

?

Summary

After many years of not regularly working on the book, I realized I was procrastinating. It was an eye-opening realization that led me to analyzing why I was doing that: there were always other priorities, it was already difficult to do, but then my perfectionism made it even harder. What helped me to overcome this procrastination was getting to ask people how I was doing, dealing with my perfectionism, find a routine and find some critical friends to provide feedback.

It's been a journey, but I’m proud and excited that I did it!

?

Now let me ask you a question: what are you procrastinating on? And how will you overcome it?

?

Milo de Lliandri?r is an action filled love story with plot twists in a mild fantasy setting. It was published by Het Punt in December 2023. You can read the first few pages on their website.