My Secret to Writing Productivity: Procrastination

Mary DeVries
3 min readFeb 3, 2021

Try to write something important but difficult and regularly take a break to write something else

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Play to your strengths, not your weaknesses. This is a common bit of self-improvement wisdom I’ve heard many times over the years. So I’ve started putting it into practice in my writing.

I’m excellent at procrastination.

People who write a story in under an hour amaze me. I’m in awe of writers who hold down a full-time day job and still churn out a couple of stories a day. My writing takes much longer than that what with needing to factor in the necessary time for gazing out the window.

With effort, I can pull off about one published story a day. Even when I enter into that blessed flow state and the words fly from my fingertips, it takes me at least a couple of hours to get from a blank page to ready to submit.

Except for yesterday, when I managed to get two stories written, starting from nothing all the way to submitting. As a bonus, I also knocked out an outline.

I can hardly call myself an internet writer if I don’t have the hubris to draw firm conclusions from one incident, so I’m going to share my hard-earned wisdom of what yesterday taught me about productivity.

Procrastinate productively

This is hardly new advice but again, internet writer hubris, remember.

As long as I can put my own spin on it, regurgitating the pablum of the ages is not just allowed but recommended.

Many people, including me, recommend taking a walk as the gold standard of writer procrastination. Folding laundry, mopping floors, and alphabetizing your spice rack also get mentions. Do something unrelated to writing and soon you will be productive again.

My secret is slightly different. Tackle a very difficult topic that you care deeply about. Give yourself bonus points if it is also a topic you expect could be highly marketable and/or a topic that involves other people in your life whose stories you need to treat with great care.

Sit down to write. After much pain and deliberation because it is very important for you to get this exactly right, write some words. They might…

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Mary DeVries

The older I get, the less I know. That won’t stop me from writing about everything and anything under the sun. Join me in delighting and despairing about life.