1. Blog [...]]]> All writers, particularly when they are faced with a difficult scene/chapter to write, have their favorite ways of procrastinating. But for those of you who are tired of procrastinating the same way all the time, and need some new, fresh ideas, I’ve compiled a list to help you in your times of need:

1. Blog
2. Do your laundry
3. Read a book
4. Do the dishes
5. Go running
6. Make some tea
7. Get something to eat
8. Check your e-mail
9. Balance your checkbook
10. Shop online
11. Read/comment on other blogs
12. Read the newspaper
13. Walk your dog
14. Take care of your kids
15. Go to the bathroom
16. Watch TV
17. Clean the house
18. Organize your desk
19. Call a friend
20. Go shopping
21. Clean out the basement
22. Take a nap
23. Take some photos
24. Download those photos
25. Organize those photos
26. Upload those photos
27. Look at Facebook
28. Twitter
29. Update your website
30. Sync you iPod/iPhone/iPad
31. Do some yoga
32. Bake some cookies
32. Eat some cookies
33. Start a photo album
34. Send a birthday card
35. Do your taxes
36. Go out for dinner
37. Check the mail
38. Pay your bills
39. Write a To-Do list
40. Respond to an e-mail
41. Water the plants
42. Make a doctor’s appointment
43. Go to the doctor
44. Go to the dentist
44. Browse for books
45. Return something to a store
46. Go grocery shopping
47. Cook something
48. Go to the dry cleaners
49. Buy someone a gift
50. Send someone a gift
51. Meditate
52. Feed your cat
53. Play with your kids
54. Donate to a charity
55. Go for a walk
56. Go out for coffee
57. Plant a vegetable garden
58. Take out the trash
59. Start a worm compost bin
60. Plan your next vacation
61. Think of ways to save money
62. Look at stocks
63. Listen to a podcast
64. Research baby products
65. Research cars
66. Book a camping trip
67. Take your cat to the vet
68. Plant some flowers
69. Knit
70. Wash the windows
71. Skype with a friend
72. Call your Mom/Dad
73. Kill a spider
74. Watch the sunset
75. Splash in a puddle
76. Backup your documents
77. Read a magazine
78. Iron your shirts
79. Change a lightbulb
80. Go on a vacation
81. Go for a hike
82. Go to the beach
83. Go for a bike ride
84. Give your dog a bath
85. Put flea drops on your cat
86. Make homemade gifts/cards
87. Make candy
88. Go to a movie
89. Google exes
90. Look up gradeschool friends on Facebook
91. Learn a new language
92. Download some apps
93. Play a video game
94. Play with your Wii
95. Play Farmville
96. Change your profile picture
97. Go out late and sleep in late
98. Take a long, hot bath
99. Host a dinner party
100. Restock your disaster bin
101. Write a list of things you are grateful for

What about you? Can you think of any more ways to procrastinate?

Monday 1. Went running instead of writing, but compromised and did a short run. [...]]]> Okay, who did their homework? Did you keep track of the times you sabotaged your writing and the times you almost did, but chose not to? Here’s my report from Monday and Wednesday of last week and Monday of this week:

Monday
1. Went running instead of writing, but compromised and did a short run.
2. Resisted writing e-mails, balancing checking account, and blogging during writing hours.
3. Almost stopped writing to edit, but then resisted and continued writing.
Self-Sabotage Level: 1

Wednesday
1. Decided to work from home to avoid commute and get more done.
2. I wanted to look at a preschool website, and I did.
3. I wanted to make a haircut appointment, and I did.
4. I wanted to run to the bank and to get lunch, and I did.
5. I wanted to balance my checkbook, and I did.
(I realized at this point that I was really tired, and that when I’m tired, I can’t focus on writing and instead do everything to sabotage my writing. The smart thing would have been to take a nap.)
6. I wanted to do more banking, but I did not.
7. I still wanted to do more banking, and I did.
8. I received a long e-mail from a friend but resisted reading it.
(Finally started writing at 2:42 p.m. and wrote for 1.5 hours.)
9. Checked e-mail and then was about to look at Yahoo groups, and I did.
10. Was about to send an e-mail to everyone in a group, but I didn’t.
11. I wasn’t going to post to my blog, and then I did.
12. I wasn’t going to comment on other blogs, and then I did.
13. I wrote just 1.5 hours today, but I did make my weekly goal of 10 hours.
Self-Sabotage Level: 8

What I learned from last week’s experience was that when I’m well rested and consciously logging my self-sabotage, I get a lot more done, but that when I’m really tired, I just don’t care that I’m sabotaging myself and do it even when I’m aware of it. I also noticed that I lose motivation to work more hours than my pre-set goal, which makes me want to rethink my goals.

This week my experience was a little different. I was in a “poor-me-I-never-had-time-to-myself” mood over the weekend. I also had a little epiphany about happiness while tutoring a student on writing an essay about happiness. (I’ll share that later). So I decided today to run some errands and go to the gym, things I knew would make me feel better, before I started writing. By the time I ate lunch and wrote for an hour, I was so tired, I lay down to take a nap and didn’t get up for two hours. The result? My workday was over, and I’d only written for one hour. But instead of beating myself up about it, I vowed to make up the hours after the kids went to bed, and I did. Often, though, what happens when I allow myself to indulge is that I don’t get a chance to make up the hours, and I fall behind my goals. The answer, I think, lies in the comments section of my last post: balance, balance, balance. We all need breaks to get fresh air, watch a movie, go out to eat, whatever it is we like to do. But we’re smart people. We know the difference between the things that really improve our lives (like exercise) and the things that are time wasters (like TV and surfing the Net). It’s by being really honest with ourselves that we can identify when we’re sabotaging our writing and when we’re taking a much needed break that will bring some new energy and a fresh perspective to our writing.

How about you? When do you sabotage your writing? Do you do it consciously or unconsciously? And, if you did the homework, what did you learn?

My homework for you is to record, for the next week, all the times [...]]]> Today I have some homework for you. You probably didn’t know when you joined this blog (You did join, didn’t you? Over there in the sidebar?) that there would be homework, but don’t worry, on my blog everyone gets As.

My homework for you is to record, for the next week, all the times you sabotage your writing. What does that mean? It means all the times you could have written but instead scheduled a date with your dog/dentist/psychic. It means all the times you sat down to write and then got up to eat/drink/clean the toilet instead. It means all the times you turned on your computer to write and instead e-mailed/read blogs/shopped online. It means all the times you chose television/exercise/research over writing. It means all the times you met deadlines for work and paid your bills but didn’t write. And in addition to writing down all the times you sabotage your writing, I want you to record all the times you were about to sabotage your writing, and then didn’t.

For example: Two months ago I ran a half marathon and then stopped running because I was injured but also because it was really time consuming and I wanted to focus on my book revision. Then two days ago I started missing running. Yesterday, I wrote a lot and got ahead on my goals. So today I decided to go running instead of getting to my office early. Was this self-sabotage? Maybe not since I was ahead, but I could have used that opportunity of being ahead to get even more done this week.

I decided a compromise would be to do a short run, so off I went. When I got to the point of turning around, there were two little devils on my shoulders (no angels, just devils). One said, “Keep going! You can do it! You can get up that hill and do the longer run!” and the other said, “This is self-sabotage! Turn back! You’ve run far enough for today!” I listened to Devil One and started up the hill. Then Devil Two spoke up again and I turned around and ran home.

So now your job is to be aware of all the choices you make during the next week and record when you choose to listen to Devil One and when you choose to listen to Devil Two. I started doing this today, and it made a huge difference in my productivity. When I arrived at work, I made a mental list of the e-mails I had to send and promised myself not to respond to any others. Then I turned on MacFreedom and went to work. Ten minutes later, I really wanted to balance my checkbook. And make a haircut appointment. And e-mail a friend. And record the run I did his morning on Daily Mile, but then I would have had to record all those things as moments I sabotaged my writing. So I didn’t do any of them, and I kept writing. An hour after that, I accidentally opened a document that I need to finish editing and decided I’d just edit it quickly and then get back to writing. But that would have been self-sabotage. So I closed the document, and went back to writing. I completed the two writing goals I had for today and then I went home and cooked and watched TV while I ate dinner. Cooking and watching TV were not self-sabotage because I had no goal this evening to write, and because we all need breaks from time to time. The key is that they were conscious decisions, not things I did unconsciously during the time I had intended to write. This exercise should a) help you get more writing done b) help you identify the ways in which you sabotage your writing and c) make you stop feeling as if the time just “slipped away” (while you were blogging/e-mailing/playing Farmville.)

I’m looking forward to hearing your results next week!

First up, my writing goals. As some of you know, four weeks ago I mailed my friend in Texas $1000 with a plan for [...]]]> … to bring you some random updates. I think I need to post Random Updates more often, a chance to say all those things that don’t merit an entire blog post.

First up, my writing goals. As some of you know, four weeks ago I mailed my friend in Texas $1000 with a plan for her to mail me back $100 each week if I make my goals and to send that $100 to a charity each week I don’t. I would have eight weeks to finish the revision of my manuscript, after which she would send me the remaining $200 when I turn my ms in to my (freelance) editor. So here’s how things have been going:

The first week, I sat down with my editor on the phone and outlined specific changes I needed to make to my ms. We came up with enough work to keep me busy for two weeks. Those changes included:

1) Incorporating some changes we had discussed to chapter one
2) Writing transitions (anywhere from a couple of sentences to a page) where I have big time jumps in time (rather than simply “Eight months later …”)
3) Adding a new chapter
4) Going through old journals, talking to former models and photographers, and possibly visiting a studio to get details to help add more texture throughout the book, particularly in the new chapter.

I split those things up into two groups of goals and did them over those first two weeks. It was difficult, and I wrote right up to the last hour, but I did it. What I learned? That if I didn’t have $100 at stake, I would have continued to put off the “difficult” things I needed to do, possibly for weeks or even months. They were: writing the new chapter (because I didn’t know what to write), going through old journals (because I’ve done that before and was sure it would be a waste of time to do it again), and calling my former modeling agent (because I haven’t talked to her in 20 years, and was worried she’d wonder why the hell I was bugging her with my petty requests.) How was it doing those difficult things? The chapter was hard. I really just wrote something to make my deadline, and I’m afraid to read it now because it’s probably crap. But I did it. The journals? I did find some stuff I could use, stuff I have no recollection of finding before. And I still have a LOT more journals to read through. The agent? She was nice. She remembered me, and offered to help me out. Nothing has come of it yet, but at least she offered.

The third week, I had a book review to write. I knew that would take up most of my (two days of) writing time, so I made my book revision goal easy: ten hours on ANYTHING, didn’t matter what it was. So I spent those ten hours reading through journals and interviewing models. And I found that—wow—when I have no resistance I can get 10 hours AND a book review done in one week. And the weeks go by VERY fast. When I say no resistance, by the way, I mean that, given the choice between cleaning the toilet and writing a new chapter, I’ll take cleaning the toilet. But given the choice between cleaning the toilet and reading through journals, I’ll read through the journals. No resistance.

Week four was this week. I had a book to edit for a client, a project I’d put off all month to get my other goals done, and the only way I was going to get it done was to NOT set other goals. So my only goal this week (other than to edit the book) were to send my editor my notes and new chapter and to interview one photographer. I haven’t done either yet, but they’re both easy goals, and I’ll get them done.

So I haven’t accomplished a whole lot these past two weeks, but after having had a “break” from revising, and after discovering that I CAN get more than ten hours of work done in a week, I’m going to make my next week’s goal 15 hours and see how that goes. I have four weeks left to finish this revision and, honestly, I don’t know how I’m going to do it. I’m happy I have just four weeks, though, because I’d rather work hard and then take a break than have this drag on all summer.

Another random update was that I’m crazy swamped with work right now and therefore can’t blog as often as usual. That explains why Monday came and went without a Memoir Monday. So like Christmas in July, Memoir Monday will be coming on Wednesday this week. And I’ll be writing shorter posts for a while. Which ain’t so bad.

In other news, I may have finally found a web designer to redesign my site. I won’t hold my breath, though, because I have already had five (or was it six?) that didn’t work out. I’m excited, though, to finally revamp meghanward.com. It’s long overdue.

Lastly, a lot of people have done these alphabet memes, where they write a post each week about a topic starting with each letter of the alphabet. They are memoir posts, and I linked to one last week. I’ve been wanting to do a regular post called Paris on Less (POL for short), and it occurred to me that the alphabet meme may be a good framework. I’ll start with Anorexia (of course, this is a book about modeling) and keep going until I get to … Zoo? Somehow it feels out of place to write about modeling, Paris, and Tokyo on a writing blog, but then again, that’s what my memoir is about. And I love when other writers share their work on their blogs.

So what do you think? Anorexia anyone?

And now we return to our regularly scheduled blog.

Back in England, I have a friend who is a self-help course junkie. You name it, [...]]]> When most people hear the word “commitment,” they think about long-term relationships and marriage. But what about commitment to yourself and your goals? According to Martha Borst, when you keep your commitments, you begin to control your life.

Back in England, I have a friend who is a self-help course junkie. You name it, she’s studied it. And during one such course, she had to meditate for something like 24 hours straight (or maybe it was 18; I forget). It was pretty hellish to sit there all night, uncomfortable, tired, even bored. And her ONLY motivation to do it was because she promised herself that she would. This was an exercise in self-commitment. If you say you’re going to do something, you DO it. No excuses. Because, as she said, “If you can’t keep a commitment to yourself, how can you keep a commitment to anyone or anything else?”

When I took a workshop with Martha, she was adamant that we all be on time. And if we were late, she put us on the spot and asked us why we broke our commitment to the group to be on time. We were all so terrified of being late that we made sure to leave home extra early. And we were, 99% of the time, on time. Martha’s point was, “If you were paid $1,000,000 to be here on time, you’d be here on time. Why not treat every commitment as though it were going to cost you $1,000,000?” I’m someone who’s frequently a few minutes late. As crazy as it sounds, I have a fear of being early. Because when I arrive some place ten minutes early and have to sit and WAIT, I think about the ten things I could have gotten done in that ten minutes, and it makes me crazy that I’ve wasted that time (unless I have a book with me that I can read, like if I’m waiting in a doctor’s office). I repeatedly make the conscious decision to risk being late rather than risk being early. I suppose this is selfish because it means that I value my time more than the other person’s time (if I’m meeting someone else). So we all have our reasons for breaking commitments.

When it comes to goals and keeping those commitments, Martha says to take a look at your results and you’ll see what you’re committed to. If you’re overweight, you’re committed to that (and that’s exactly how you want to be, or you’d change it.) If you’re not getting your book written, then you’re committed to that, too. Look at what you’re committed to (not at what you think you should be committed to or what you want to be committed to), and you’ll discover your underlying beliefs about yourself. If you believe you’ll never succeed as a writer because your parents used to tell you that writers don’t make any money and you should be a doctor or a lawyer instead, then that may be the cause of your constantly breaking your commitments to yourself.

Another point Martha made was that your ability to keep your commitments is directly related to your ability to say no. This is SO true. As I mentioned in a previous post, I’m in a writing goals group. (“Hi, my name is Meghan, and I’m a writer.”) I recently found that one thing thwarting my writing goals was that I couldn’t say no to social commitments. I found myself in this death spiral of “Yes, yes, yes” because I didn’t TECHNICALLY have plans on any of those days/evenings. So I made it my goal to turn down most new social plans (This doesn’t include play dates on the days I have the kids because I can’t work then anyway and need to get the munchkins out of the house.) I turned down six invitations in the past week, and man did that feel good! I have begun protecting my time, and even if I don’t get any writing done, I can read or blog or catch up on “chores” around the house, so that those things are out of the way when I sit down to write.

I’m writing this post because I think 90% of us, especially in flaky California, don’t take our commitments seriously enough. People are all too comfortable canceling plans last minute, not showing up to parties they RSVP’d for, showing up late to appointments, and not completing goals they set. It’s fine to give ourselves breaks from work, but then don’t set goals. If you’re going to set them, KEEP them. And if you don’t, take a good look inside and ask yourself why. This is serious stuff. If you can’t keep your commitments to yourself, you’ll never accomplish your dreams, and you’ll never feel like a success in your own eyes. Of course we all slip up now and then, but use those slip-ups as lessons for the next goal. Did you set your goal too high? If not, what prevented you from achieving it? Too many social commitments? Then learn to say no! Too much Internet? Then block yourself from using it! The time just “slipped away”? Then you’re not scheduling your goals into your daily routine. You need to block time out each day to achieve them. You need to put those hours on your calendar. And you need to treat that time seriously, like a job or a doctor’s appointment. If you need to get out of the house to write, then do that. Do whatever it is you need to do. For me, it’s being really disciplined on my “work” days and then taking the weekday evenings off. Because I’m too tired at night to work, so there’s no sense in beating myself up if I don’t write then. It’s better that I take a break and get to bed early, so I am reading to write during the day.

So now you tell me, do you keep your commitments? If yes, what is the key to your success? If not, why not? What underlying beliefs are thwarting your success?