The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles
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In general however, my advice is to relax. There is more to life than knowing little bits of many things. Try to learn something outside of computers. I find building things with my hands that aren't on a screen a lot more gratifying generally. Also, those kinds of skills come in a lot more handy in a zombie apocalypse. So there is that.
RESISTANCE. Read this. It will help.
This is absolutely beautiful. I think what's most important is this: "this inner critic is your adversary, [but] it is also fundamental to the creative process".
In other words, don't try to avoid the struggle; face it, embrace it, because this is what creation is all about.
On that exact subject, I recommend "The War of Art" by Steven Pressfield. It's quite short but very intense, worth a read.
[1] https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...
[1] https://www.amazon.co.uk/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp...
I'd also highly recommend a book called "The War of Art"[2] which was written by a procrastinator who eventually made good.
I'm still struggling with procrastination, but my personal feeling is that the key is probably to create a routine where you just execute your productive work during a set block of time everyday, much like a job. This is just so you don't have to decide whether or not to do the work "now" which will break the procrastination doom loop. Good luck!
[1] https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...
Non-affiliate Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...
Instead of overanalyzing procrastination, he identifies the invisible but real force of Resistance and how to deal with it.
EDIT: grammar
Do the Work - https://www.amazon.com/Do-Work-Overcome-Resistance-Your/dp/1...
The War of Art - https://www.amazon.com/War-Art-Through-Creative-Battles/dp/1...
You have to build a muscle for this stuff. It's hard.
I have re-read this book constantly since purchasing it well over 10 years ago. The chapters on facing resistance and how to deal with it constantly resonate with me when working on my own projects.
I know all these thoughts too well. Can I recommend a book? It's short and is right up your alley. A composer recommended it to me, and I haven't been the same since. The War of Art
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles https://toptalkedbooks.com/amzn/1936891026
No tricks per se, otherwise forcing yourself will be short lived and will produce low quality results. Having said that, this is what I did / do:
Read "The War on Art" you'll understand why it's so hard to start doing something that you want to badly (TL;DR: it's your lizard brain / the resistance. Still read the book)
Your brain works better in the morning, we all know that. And there are soooo many ~~things we need to do~~ distractions, well.. writing is your job, and you get paid with those distractions. Wake up and don't do anything until you have written some (you can quantify yourself what this some is, 250 words? 500? 2,500??) not even brushing your teeth, and surely not breakfast (that's the pay for writing). Questionable about bodily functions, it all depends how well you perform under pressure (jk). YMMV
Develop better habits, starting from #2 above.
Quotas seem to work, you can have a words quota, or time quota, or a combo.
What I have seen working is a quotas, you determined how many words/time a unit of writing is, let's say 500 words or 30 minutes; and how many units is your minimum per day. You take it from there.
Here's the real trick you have just read my thing and you're not going to like it at all. Great! You and I are not the same. Pull it apart, be the brutal editor of my work, make it so that it works, pretend you're doing it not for you but for a friend who asked you for help. Then... follow your own advice, but for the sake of the Muses and the Gods of writing, keep #1.
YMMV.