Procrastinators Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from chronic procrastination.

Need some advice (or hope) for Writer's Block

I have a block about a letter I need to write for a few weeks now.  The letter is to make a request.  

Have been on the site for a few months and have been improving TG, but this one one has blocked me (for now).  

Broke it down to several steps (and actually did the first).  

Talked it over w/ a friend and id'd some issues, including writer's block.  

I see it getting done eventually, but in the meantime, it's a bottle neck on my "to do" list, i.e. I do not want to start another project until I finsih this one. 

 Any suggestions OR EXPERIENCE are greatly appreciated!  

Btw thanks to everyone for the help to now. It's a great site.

Progress not Prefection 

ask yourself why

The strategies of "Ask yourself why", and "Accept the worst that could happen", have helped me with the kind of writer's block you're experiencing.

Since you're making a request, ask yourself why - what are your hidden emotions about the outcome of the request.

If fear of a negative outcome is one of the emotions that comes up, then I suggest accepting the worst (and the best) that could happen. Just tell yourself, say it even if you don't wholly beleive it, " I can handle it if (x) happens. I accept the possibility that  (y) might happen."

On other kinds of writing tasks, I've had to accept that, due to my procrastination or just plain not being as brilliant and awesome a writer as I would like, I would be turning in a mediocre product. Beleive it or not, that one was extremely tough for me. To submit something I knew was second rate hurt some vital organ or other.  The message I had from my father, an excellent professional writer,  was, "Don't do a half-a** job on something."

In order not to do a half-a** job, I procrastinated until the last minute, and/or never did the writing at all. One of the outcomes I had to accept was that I might have to go against my father's message, turning in faulty writing. 

As I said, this has worked for me to help me get unstuck. Hope it works for you.

 

Yes, I hear that

Your father's message is one I heard in many different forms.

It's a form of perffectionism isn't it?

 

Go to go will get back later

 

Progress not Prefectionsim

Do it Now 

 

thanks

I will try that.  let's kit

getting dreaded tasks done

what i have found is that doing "dreaded" tasks has gotten easier with positive prior experience. It works like this: I would have dreaded task, finally just did it (often with help of this group), consequences were never what I thought they would be, i.e. my performance on said task proves i am the dumbest person who ever lived.

Each time I do a "dreaded" task it forms a positive experience for me to remember for the next time I have a "dreaded" or "scary" task. I start to have a a series of experiences that I can draw from that remind me that the fear I have is not real, it's just what my mind is telling me. (I try to remember too that I don't have to do anything perfectly the first time. Learning to do something well for me often means making many mistakes, but I have to make the mistakes in order to learn.)

Hope this helps and good luck!

Babarino

Thanks to Babarino

Those are some great pts.  Am running now but will circle back on that .

 

Thank you

 

Progress not Prefection