Sometimes when we put off a task, it’s not about the work involved. It could be the smallest of jobs. I recently put off buying some event tickets, part of planning for a trip my family’s taking months from now.

In all, it was a few clicks and a confirmation email. I intended to get in, get them, and get out the day the tickets went on sale, but I didn’t even get the website loaded until three days after it was live. I couldn’t, somehow.

Each day that passed, I couldn’t make myself prioritize the tickets. Such an “easy” thing! I can always do it… after work, maybe. Wow, I’m tired. I could always do it, uh, first thing in the morning!

And so it went.

Once it was done—on a Friday night of all times—I felt such relief. And pride, weirdly. I reported my triumph to Billy like I’d just won our family an award (rather than what I’d actually done: successfully bought something for us online).

So what was going on? After the fact, I could hear the voices in my head better. They’d been there along the way. If I don’t score these tickets, it will be such a disappointment. We booked this trip exactly for events like this. It will ruin the trip if this doesn’t work out. I missed the first day? Well, just watch: I’ll get in there, and they’ll all be gone already. I’ve probably already wrecked it.

Once I could hear it, I knew there were a few things going on in this voice. Perfectionism: its calling card is that all-or-nothing approach that’s haunting my thoughts. Either things unfold exactly as imagined… or it’s a total disaster.

There’s also some sense of duty gone haywire: I must do it, for my family. I said I would do it, so I have to do it. I should be able to, so I’ll just do it no matter what.

And from there, guilt and shame pile on, and judgment just compounds all the fears that I already had set to a low simmer. I’m not actually lazy, or incompetent, or weak. I don’t lack “grit.” I’m not immature for catastrophizing a seemingly tiny task.

Like anyone with a human body, sometimes my brain works a little too hard to protect me. So-called procrastination is often a form of avoidance, a defense mechanism. Something deep inside is scared, and my body will spin itself out trying to keep me away from that feeling.

Is it logical? Nope. Does it actually help the root problem? No way. But I’ve got tools to deal with this reaction. I can get curious. I wonder why I’ve been putting this off. Is this a focus problem or a feeling problem? (And to be clear, it’s not that the feeling is the problem: it’s that the avoidance of the feeling is causing a problem.)

The same thing happens in writing, too. One of the bigger examples for me was my master’s thesis. The size of a small book, this text needed to be done-done at least two months before the end of my 22-month program. I generated most of it just four months before the end. Yes, I’d started it in the first weeks of coursework. Some of the big stuff, though, I couldn’t tackle until the pressure of the calendar drove me to it.

I was avoiding not only some big feelings attached to the degree itself (fearing “failure,” embarrassment, inadequacy) but also some big feelings attached to the work. My genre was creative nonfiction, and I was mostly working with material relating to my mother’s chronic illness and my relationship with her.

No small feat.

It makes sense that it was a thing I didn’t want to write. I did, but I didn’t. My thinking brain wanted it, but the rest of my brain wanted to spare me from it.

Humans are so, so smart and so, so dumb. But here we are. ♥

Writing Prompt

This is meant to be a hopeful essay. In any of the examples mentioned, once I knew what was going on with my avoidance, I felt so much more free and so much kinder toward myself. (It’s not like I can think of a time when piling on ever made a tough situation easier.)

Rather than approaching tasks with a “just buckle down” mindset, try something gentler. Get playful.

Start a piece (real or imagined) with some direct curiosity:

• “This is the thing I didn’t want to write…”
• “Here’s the poem I don’t want to think about…”
• “Let me tell you about the job I don’t want to do…”
• “Dear So-and-So, this is that email I owe you…”
• “Welcome to the paper I am avoiding!”

Go gently into that good avoidance.