[eeyorestail]

For some reason, my work makes me really anxious. I'm a freelance writer, and it's working out really well for me. But every time I sit down to write I get anxious. I'm not sure what I'm anxious about, exactly (though I tend to get anxious about just about everything).

This leads me to try to avoid the anxiety by procrastinating, or sometimes just not doing the work. But of course as the work piles up, I just get even more anxious and want to procrastinate more. It's a vicious cycle.

Does anyone else experience this? Any tips on dealing with procrastination?

[archipelago]

I'm a writer too. Not as a profession, but published. There is a great book by a neurologist on writing called The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer's Block, and the Creative Brain by Alice Flaherty. She doesn't write like a scientist; it's very readable.

I used to experience this and once in a while do. I'm currently in grad school again, which requires a fair amount of writing. I basically know that it is more painful to put it off and get all tied up in knots about it so I just jump in and end up losing myself in the process so I don't get stuck.

But there are exceptions. They tend to be when I'm trying to be too ambitious or say too much. That or I am just not truly interested enough but won't admit that. When those things happen, it produces a lot of anxiety which is prolonged by putting it off. If really bad I have to take a sedative, and a little break, have a talk with myself and then try to get back on track.

For me, the best approach is the just jumping in. But when I do get stuck, I try to probe what is really going on underneath and see if I can deal with that to get moving.

[Gus1234U]

i thought about posting in this thread, but i worried about what i might sound like, and what you might think of me, so i'm going to put it off a while.....

[K2TOG]

I'm not a writer but I are a very difficult time focusing and I waste a lot of time instead of getting things done that I should be working on. Even things I enjoy doing I have stopped because I get stressed. Like craft projects. I was making something for a friend and I quit the project because I was afraid of making mistakes. I would get frustrated when I had to fix a mistake.

Not sure how to overcome procrastination and the anxiety it causes.

[BadWolf]

Maybe adhd tips? Work in small bursts, make organization systems, etc.

[Raghib Ahmed]

Hi there.

You sound a lot like me.

I think it's a case of feeling overwhelmed. Like you have so much to think and write about and don't know where to begin or something like that. It overwhelms us and makes us uncomfortable, so we look for an escape (procrastination), which is comfortable.

What helps is defining what you want to do, and breaking it down into a really easy step.

So just think about what you want to write about, and make a note of it in a sentence or a few bullet points. Then just tell yourself you'll write only for a few minutes, and if you want to stop, then you can afterwards.

What this does is lower the discomfort and burden you feel. And 9/10 times, after those few minutes of writing, you'll want to continue writing because you'll be in motion.