I need the struggle to feel alive.
The more important something is to me the longer it will take me to even get started. I will put off going to the supermarket maybe for an hour or two. But writing an article, my first one to be published in a newspaper? I will put that one off until the very last minute. I have known the due date for ages. I made plans and formed sentences in my head, writing and rewriting lines. Doing half-hearted research for a while before getting distracted by something shiny.
Then it's Saturday night and I sit there pulling my hair, typing a few sentences, and pulling my hair again while all my friends are at a party. All my brilliantly crafted sentences are gone and I just have to get something on screen, anything I can give to my editor at midnight while my perfectionist heart quietly sobs in the corner.
80% of success is showing up, they say. For me it's more like 100%. Either I make the deadline or I don't. Unless you want to measure success in being satisfied with your work. In that case it would be much more productive to write a rought draft and then change little things here and there after you've mulled them over. Yet I can never seem to do it. It was true with school essays, preparing theater roles, papers for uni, and is true today.
I make a plan, I think about it, I revel in the dream of how perfect my piece will be but I don't actually write it. Finally there comes a time when I can't be choosey anymore, I just have to write something, anything. I am high with adrenaline and glancing at the clock becomes almost as important as the words that finally spill out.
I do feel kind of heroic when I do meet the impossible deadline before I collapse, exhausted.
It took years of training to perfect them. But my procrastinator superpowers saved me yet again.
Then it's Saturday night and I sit there pulling my hair, typing a few sentences, and pulling my hair again while all my friends are at a party. All my brilliantly crafted sentences are gone and I just have to get something on screen, anything I can give to my editor at midnight while my perfectionist heart quietly sobs in the corner.
80% of success is showing up, they say. For me it's more like 100%. Either I make the deadline or I don't. Unless you want to measure success in being satisfied with your work. In that case it would be much more productive to write a rought draft and then change little things here and there after you've mulled them over. Yet I can never seem to do it. It was true with school essays, preparing theater roles, papers for uni, and is true today.
I make a plan, I think about it, I revel in the dream of how perfect my piece will be but I don't actually write it. Finally there comes a time when I can't be choosey anymore, I just have to write something, anything. I am high with adrenaline and glancing at the clock becomes almost as important as the words that finally spill out.
I do feel kind of heroic when I do meet the impossible deadline before I collapse, exhausted.
It took years of training to perfect them. But my procrastinator superpowers saved me yet again.