Procrastination - curse or blessing?

I’ve been putting off writing this latest post while I carefully considered what particularly pressing issue I should address next.  So, for a few weeks now – OK, four to be precise! - I haven’t been able to decide between expounding on either the unfairnesses suffered by Dundee United FC every time they play one of the “dark forces” (that’s Celtic and ‘the club formerly known as’ Rangers to you!), or the relentless travesties visited on the people of Scotland by our imperial masters in Westminster.

No doubt I’ll cover both of these nagging concerns soon enough but, like I said, I’ve been deliberating on this for around a month now (yes, even before THAT cup Final!). It’s probably better to, once and for all, confront the long-lasting elephant in my now lavishly kitted-out work room… and that is, my ceaseless ability to waste time to an almost professional standard.

Procrastination, my friends, is widely acknowledged as a curse of our modern age, especially for writers.  To make sure of its exact definition, I procrastinated a wee bit more, purely in the name of research and accuracy you understand, and looked it up - “Procrastination: the action of delaying or postponing something.”  Those nice chaps at Google go on to offer some synonyms: dithering, delaying tactics, dilatoriness, stalling, hesitation, vacillation; humming and hawing, dilly-dallying, shilly-shallying.  All sounds about right – guilty as charged!

Once I get going I can be an absolute machine!  Things get done, projects get started, sometimes even finished…  And yet…  and yet, there’s that whole ‘starting’ thing.  It’s not just me, I hasten to add, most people have this affliction to some degree.  And just as well, since our polar opposites are knee-jerky reactivists who steam into things without properly thinking it through.

It’s not that us procrastinators are lazy, it’s just that there’s always something else to do first, or think about.  “I’ll be alright once…”  Sound familiar?  Writing has been pretty much my full-time occupation for a few years, yet it’s only now that there is any credible evidence of that at all.

There were various non-reasons for the time not being quite right while I shilly-shallied (thank you Google, nice use of synonym there!) round the fringes.  Then, last year I decided to take the bull by the horns and… “do a course”!  Just to get me into the correct frame of mind you understand, fill in some gaps and provide a structure for moving on, and procrastinate a wee bit more...

So far, so careful.  But good.  Course completed, distinction achieved, plan made, then…  hmm, my working area isn’t inspiring enough!  Honest, I’m not making this up, this is really how my head works sometimes.  Most of the constituent pieces were in our possession however, they just needed to be assembled and gathered in the correct location.

And finally, once this absolutely essential preparatory activity was complete, we gazed proudly upon what we have now christened our Creative Hub, and a place of beauty it is too.  I love it.

So, am I proudly dashing this little ditty off from the Creative Hub?  No!  That would be too easy dear reader.  What we now have is two beautifully appointed work areas and I’m currently sitting in the original one while my proofreader other half is out being a ‘lady who lunches’.  Well, I wouldn’t want to get my Creative Hub dirty, would I?