Just write.
Friday, September 5, 2014
I have made is no secret in the past on this blog of the difficulty I have writing my thoughts and ideas down, and often that leads to days, nay weeks of procrastination when it comes to certain tasks. If you know me personally, then you would most likely agree that I am already quite the pro at procrastinating, I'm lazy and I put things off far too often - I admit that. Despite often being an obstacle in my life as a 'blogger', this actually has a much more serious affect when it comes to my studies. For instance, I am supposed to be writing my dissertation right now (or to be truthful, I should have finished it about Easter time?) but here I am, tapping along on my keyboard trying to get my thoughts down in a comprehensible manner for this blog post inspired by said essay, but not actually working on the thing itself. When I find things too hard, I have a terrible habit of simply giving up and simply leaving the task for 'another day' (see: as far in the future as possible). Hence, I am always in a mad rush before deadlines and I get myself completely and utterly stressed out to the point of physical and mental breakdown. I'm just not a writer, I never have been - why did I start a blog?! - so I just assume that I can't do whatever I'm tasked with completing. However, somehow I have made it through 3 years of university (and blogging!) already, so I have a tip to share with my fellow people who have as much trouble as I do when it comes to weavin' the words.
JUST WRITE. WRITE ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING THAT COMES TO MIND.
Seriously, it's the only way to get going. I'm a serious perfectionist so it pains me to do this, but having 300 words of questionable content to work off of and improve at a later date is much, much easier than returning to a blank canvas and still struggling to get any thoughts flowing. The majority of my blog posts and pretty much every essay I have ever written have consisted of random thoughts and ideas thrown onto a page in an incomprehensible order, which are later bulked out and arranged, before one final check to make sure I'm happy with the wording/order etc. I even say to myself (especially with essays) that I can go to sleep/take a break/grab some lunch after I've written 1000 words for example - they don't have to particularly special or even final, but it's 1000 words less to write and a piece of text that I can come back to and polish in time. These separate 'stages' are usually done with a bit of time in between to allow new ideas to flow before going back and reading over my work with fresh eyes. So, although this hasn't helped much getting things done that much earlier, it at least helps me to get over the initial 'blank page syndrome' that can leave me um-ing and ah-ing for weeks on end.
Do you have any tips to get those more daunting tasks done? Let me know!
