9 Tips to Avoid Procrastination

by Jaden

1) “THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.”
– Edward Bulwer-Lytton,1839
Why procrastinate when you have the power to change the world right in your hands? Don’t just sit there text-messaging on your iPhone to some bimbo who you won’t even be talking to next year, write your screenplay and influence the world with your words!

2) “JUST DO IT.”
– Dan Wieden for Nike, 1988
I am not talking about just sitting down to write your screenplay, I am talking about doing whatever is on your mind that you want to do OTHER than write your screenplay. Feel no guilt — it’s research! It’s even tax-deductible. Use all those great reasons you found to procrastinate, go live and experience the world, and when you are done procrastinating, write a story about your adventure! Take a year off and be a vagabond if you want. Just do it! If you follow your heart, an award-winning screenplay might come of it.

3) “ONLY THING WE HAVE TO FEAR IS FEAR ITSELF.”
– Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932
Don’t worry about writing the perfect story with the perfect characters and the perfect plot. Just get the general ideas down. Write as much as you can without worrying about how good it is, or if anyone is going to like it, or whether you will fail or succeed, or if the person you are writing about is going to hate you. Just get it written! You will be fortunate if anyone ever sees it. Things that are not immediately real should not be boggling your brain. The What-If game is going to do nothing but steal your time. Focus on your story and write it.

4) DON’T GET IT RIGHT, GET IT WRITTEN.
This is something you will hear a lot by screenwriters in Hollywood. Any successful screenwriter will tell you: Screenwriting is in the editing! Just write your story, get it down, and then go back to perfect it later. No matter what, you will have to edit and revise your screenplay many times. If you are so lucky that you sell it, then there will be other screenwriters, producers, directors and actors revising your screenplay. Get used to editing! Forget about perfection. Just get the story written!

5) CLEAN YOUR SPACE.
This one is personal. I cannot work if I see something else I could do. I need a clean environment in which to work. If you are like me, dedicate 1 hour to cleaning your space: dishes, vacuuming, laundry, making the bed, tending to the pets’ or children needs. One hour and one hour only, then close out the world, sit down at your workspace and write.

6) COMMIT TO YOUR FILTHINESS.
If you are having a lazy day, or that’s how you are everyday, succumb to the mess and forget about it. Heck, add to it! Make yourself a big breakfast (or dinner), coffee, and leave everything out, throw crumpled up paper and clothes on the floor, and enjoy your mess; let it inspire you. Tell your spouse or parents to take a hike; you’re inspired!

7) MAKE UP A STORY ABOUT YOUR CRAP!
“The Usual Suspects” clever plot was based on a detained criminal who fabricates an entire fictitious story from the words and images posted all over the walls in the questioning room.

You can use this technique in your very own messy home. Try this for a practice screenplay. If you are struggling for ideas, just start with what you are seeing in front of your face. Invent a story about each thing you see and then weave it all together. Whose things are these? How did they get there? What is the unsolved mystery? Is it a murder scene? An abandoned house? A deceased grandparent? The room of a runaway teen? From where did that earring come?

8) FROM HARDSHIPS COME GREAT STORIES.
Maybe your procrastination is based on serious hardships in your life. A bad home situation. A ruthless boss. Poverty. You have no time to yourself to write or maybe your head is in a dark place and you are stuck in a funk. During this time, just accept it and roll with it. Keep a notebook at all times and jot down your ideas. Make notes of interesting conversations and events or thoughts. When the time is right, which it will be someday, then you can write your masterpiece. Just be patient and have faith.

9) SIT THERE AND WRITE ANYTHING.
As exhibited in my favorite movie of all time, “The Shining,” Jack forces himself to sit at his desk and type, even if he isn’t saying anything at all. He tells his family to leave him alone, “Can’t you see I’m working?”

“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” This is the famous line Jack writes for hundreds of pages. From this seemingly meaningless sentence comes a landmark movie.

Schedule certain hours of the day that you FORCE yourself to sit there and write, even if you are writing seemingly nothing. Babble, ramble, whatever, but something WILL eventually come to you. Free-write every single day. What did you see that day? What conversations did you have? What inspired you? What bothered you? What would you rather be doing? What ideas are percolating? What did you watch on TV or read in a book?

January 29, 2008 | Filed Under Screenwriting Tips 

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