Welcome to the procrastination station.
I'm even overthinking the subtitle, so there isn't one.
It’s been a while, although you may not have noticed. Aside from a break over the summer, I’ve been suffering from an acute case of procrastination. Before I sat down to write this, I took the bins back in. That’s how bad it is, especially when your binmen/binpeople/refuse removers like to scatter your recycling boxes around as if they’ve just played out a scene in a psycho drama. It must be quite therapeutic really, tipping the rubbish and then throwing the boxes over your shoulder with wild abandon, like a bride tossing their bouquet. My aggressive slamming of the dishwasher door doesn’t quite do it.
I also had a quick perusal of the aspirational clothes brochure that lands softly on my doormat. I flick through a world containing hues of merlot, olive and shortbread (clearly a culinary palette), admiring the louchely draped trousers puddling on the floor, and then I remind myself that for me, they would be puddling in an actual puddle. I’m not swishing around though. I’m not ‘killing it.’ I’m sighing around. I’m gently bruising it.
I know I’m in trouble when I read yet another book on writing or creativity which I read at warp speed and add to all the other books in the same genre. My shelves of shame. It’s the literary equivalent of those scenes in films where a person noses in someone’s bathroom cabinet and sees bottles of pills lined up to cater for every mood. You look at this particular section and mutter, ‘Jeez, I think she has has an issue. Should we tell her?’
When I’m at ‘peak procrasto,’ I read books about procrastination. Bec Evans and Chris Smith’s book ‘Written’ (find them at
) is a wonderful read.When I should have been doing other stuff, I powered through Daily Rituals by Mason Currey (https://www.masoncurrey.com/daily-rituals), a compelling collection of the daily rituals of famous creatives. Those rituals seemed to comprise copious amount of drugs, alcohol, a fair amount of walking and a hefty dose of angst. I’ve only really got the last two nailed. Georges Simenon apparently slept with four different women a day and still managed to churn out hundreds of novels. I’ll bet he wasn't tackling the grout in the shower seal though (and that’s not a euphemism) or replacing the loo rolls left with a single sheet. Naturally, I’ve also bought Currey’s other book which focuses on the daily rituals of just women which should prove an interesting compare and contrast exercise.
My daily ritual goes something like this:
6.15am: Wake up and stumble around trying to decode the latest dream in the grip of REM (the last one was chatting to the late Queen who was lying on a therapist’s couch - make of that what you will);
6.30am: Take a shower and feel inspired by lots of ideas for pitches, composing whole paragraphs in my head (sounds smug, which is why you must read on);
6.45am: Holler for children to get out of bed even though they have alarms. Shove bagel into the hands of one of the teens as they leave for school with the dog in hot pursuit.
7.00am: Compile ‘to-do’ list and resolutely ignore it for the rest of the day.
7.30am: Scan different publications and wonder just how many ‘We’ve moved to the city to the country and it’s errr… different,’ the reading public can bear, conclude that it must be quite a lot and that makes me sad. Ditto wild swimming. Also read about which foods and beverages are going to simultaneously kill me or prolong my life indefinitely. Tut loudly over a notable rise in spelling/grammar errors.
Rest of the morning: Sit at my laptop and dismiss all the pitch ideas I had in the shower in the realisation that I haven’t recently moved to the country, discovered the meaning of life through hot yoga or had the idea for a scintillating debut novel whilst wild swimming. At my morning conference, the dog agrees to commission all my ideas in exchange for cheese.
Somewhere around lunch: Execute a pathetic air punch because the laundry bin has reached empty status and will remain so for approximately five minutes. Stare in despair at piles of admin and read about other people’s far more interesting daily rituals instead. Shout ‘FFS’ a lot into the ether as yet another crisis unfolds on the school WhatsApp over something insignificant.
The dregs of the afternoon: Chase up some previous pitches wondering whether to offer to move house or take the wild swimming plunge for bonus bylines. Craft some more pitches. Experience the dark night of the soul in the middle of the afternoon which nudges me to rescue the character I’ve left at a funeral in a first draft (I say first draft, it’s actually 3,000 words). Nope, they’re still there.
The bitter dregs: Go out to seek coffee (not bitter dregs, but writer nectar despite the ever-changing headlines about its nuking or cultivating properties). Realise that I’m investing far too much in my interaction with a stranger about the vagaries of self-checkouts.
Evening: Someone fixes me a zinger of a cocktail and then I host a litany of scintillating minds in a pseudo-salon where laughter ripples through the evening. Oh, sorry, no. That’s my fictional parallel world. I gather the kids in and exchange a series of texts mainly comprising: ‘What time is dinner roughly?’ ‘Dinner’s ready.’ ‘Dinner now. It’s going cold.’ I look at the tsunami of school admin emails and mourn the days of the paper slip.
Bedtime: In a relaxed state, I’m bolstered by more pitch ideas, convinced that there must be a group that has found inner peace through naked table football or that pubic plaiting or pubic mullets are the new thing. In the cold light of day, these convictions will, have course, evaporated as I take my seat back at the procrastination station.
How about that has a daily ritual. Are you not totally underwhelmed? (Did Russell Crowe say this in Gladiator? No, that was ‘Are you not entertained?’) Not a jot of benzedrine, slosh of whisky or endless packets of Gaullists in sight. Or maybe, there should be …..
I’d love to hear about the daily rituals you swear by or how you knock 'peak procrasto’ on the head.
You made me laugh out loud about the school Whatsapp group!
My daily ritual always includes either agonising for far too long about what on earth we can have for dinner/what can I forage from the freezer/fridge/store cupboard or I get to 7pm and think "bugger, I have no clue what we're having for dinner". Panic!