The 7 Secrets of the Prolific Writer's Block (20 page)

Are you at ristk for over-specializing? I don’t think so, because I’m not talking about becoming a hyper-specialized “geek” who can’t function except in a limited sphere, but simply maintaining a strong focus on your high-value activities within
each
of your investment categories. Another way to think of this is that most PTMs are far too
un
specialized in their time use, so a little specialization is simply restoring the balance.

The need to specialize means that GTMs routinely reject non-emergency requests for help in low-value ways—and, thus, they save themselves from overgiving, or the chronic subordination of their needs and mission to others’.
As mentioned in Section 4.3, overgiving is a nobler problem than selfishness or exploitativeness, but it’s still a problem, especially as it is one of the prime mechanisms by which procrastination mimics productive work (Section 1.8).

Here’s what happens when you overgive to your job, an activist campaign, a community group, a business venture, or other people:

(1) For starters, you don’t get to live out your own mission. This almost guarantees bitterness and regret.

(2) You’re probably exhausted, and possibly broke. This means your lifestyle is not sustainable—which means that all the projects and relationships you contribute importantly to are also not sustainable. (And if your contribution is not important, why are you giving at all?)

(3) Dangerously, you attract the wrong people—those seeking to exploit you, or evade responsibility or accountability, or both.

(4) You compromise your effectiveness and growth.

(5) In a worst-case scenario, you don’t give your best effort to anyone or anything, either because you can’t (because you’re frantically busy and/or depleted), or won’t (because you feel angry and exploited), or both. In failing to commit to multiple individual tasks or engagements, you are actually failing to commit to entire projects or relationships.

Overgiving is, in short, a potent form of self-sabotage.

Many overgivers are nice people, but many also have trouble saying no and standing up for their own needs (Section 4.11), and many are grandiose (Section 2.2). Their grandiosity manifests itself as:

• Wanting to be the hero or “savior,” or to be perceived as indispensable, a “problem solver,” a “go-to person,” etc.;

• Believing you should be able to take on others’ burdens or solve their problems for them;

• Believing you should be able to do that AND live out your own ambitious mission;

• Believing you can break the rules, for instance, by not earning enough money to sustain yourself, or chronically working too many hours a week.

Even though many grandiose people have a logical-sounding rationalization for their behavior—e.g., “I can sign up for all these committees because I’m well organized,”—grandiosity is always fundamentally delusional.

A brief word about
psychological “boundaries,”
a topic that, from a time-management standpoint at least, is rather simple. There are two things you need to know:

(1)
Boundaries aren’t “between” you and the other person, but within you, in your heart and mind.
You need to make conscious decisions about what you’d like your relationship to a person (or group) to be, what and how much you are willing to give, and what and how much you expect to receive in return. Once you make these decisions, life gets
much
easier, since you are now operating from principle instead of the exigencies of the moment. However, if you don’t make them, or only do so half-heartedly (see Section 6.5), then your work and relationships are likely to suffer. And,

(2)
It is
your
responsibility to state your needs.
Too many writers don’t, and not only do they cheat themselves of help, they cheat the other person of the opportunity to help. There could be many reasons for their reluctance, including shyness, internalized oppression (Chapter 6), or a fear that the request will be denied—and that fear might be justified. Still, it is imperative that you learn to state your needs for several reasons:

• They might actually get met. In fact, the writers I encourage to state their needs to family, bosses, and others almost always come back to tell me that the person not only complied, but was grateful to be asked.

• Perfectionist myths about “lone geniuses” aside, it’s practically impossible to succeed at an ambitious goal without a strong, supportive community behind you. And,

• As discussed in Section 3.8, the act of asking for help is, itself, empowering.

The key to outstanding achievement is to be a specialist, surround yourself with other specialists of diverse types, and give and accept help liberally in the form of high-value activities within that group.

Workaholism and Codependency.
Working long hours could be the right choice if doing so (a) aligns with your mission; (b) doesn’t cause you to sacrifice other important goals or values, such as your health or relationships; and (c) doesn’t put you in the realm of deprivation, depletion, exhaustion, stalling out (Section 1.10), burnout, or compassion fatigue. In my experience, most overwork scenarios do
not
meet these requirements and therefore qualify as workaholism, an addictive habit of using work as an escape from life’s pains and stresses. (For instance: “I feel sad and helpless at home because I’m alienated from my spouse, my kids are a trial, and things are chaotic. I might as well stay at work, where at least I’m appreciated and can shut the door and have some peace.”)

Of course, workaholism is a fine vehicle for procrastination—not the least, because many employers and others will encourage you in it.

Codependency is a related, and often overlapping, problem: it’s when you focus on someone else’s problems as a way of avoiding your own. Often you’ll see two codependents locked in a dysfunctional dyad—think of an alcoholic married to an overeater, or someone with a strong need for order working alongside someone perpetually disorganized. (In the human services realm, one often sees case managers overinvesting in clients who either can’t or won’t change.) A hallmark of codependency is that, no matter how much work you put into helping the other person, things never really improve, since: (a) the person is probably not ready to change—or may not even perceive themselves as having a problem, and (b) codependency is founded on the fallacy that you can control someone’s behavior.

If you are locked in a workaholic or codependent situation there are books you can read to gain insight, but you will probably also need therapy—and, of course, time management will be an important tool for helping you regain life balance.

“
Email overload” is a ubiquitous and serious problem that, believe it or not, is also rooted in overgiving. If you get just twenty emails a day and spend an average of three minutes on each, that’s an hour a day spent just answering emails—an appalling chunk of time to go to what is probably mostly or totally a low-value activity.

I think the basic problem is that email is a weird hybrid medium that combines the formality and permanence of a letter with the casualness and transience of a phone call. The problem is therefore twofold: (1) we get lots of emails, and (2) we treat too many of them as if they were important (that’s the overgiving). Then we and labor over them. (Texting, which severely limits your message length, basically solves this problem, although it introduces others.) Emailing is also an excellent mimic of productive work, and therefore often used as a vehicle for procrastination (Section 1.8).

Here are some techniques GTMs use to manage their emails:

(1)
Terse answers.
GTMs never write a long answer to an email when a short answer, or no answer, will do. They are quite comfortable replying with single words or short phrases, such as “Yes,” or “Confirmed,” or “Sorry—not a good fit right now.” And, by the way, they understand and can live with the knowledge that some correspondents will be turned off by the terseness. But they know their true supporters will understand how busy they are and not mind—and also, they’re probably associating with other productive people who are also emailing tersely.

I send many logistical emails with only a few words written right in the subject line, followed by (eom) for “end of message.”

(2)
Use the phone.
GTMs know that conversation, or even voicemail, is often a better medium for conveying detailed and/or subtle messages that if you tried to email you would wind up laboring over and still not get right.

(3)
Technology.
GTMs make abundant use of email signatures and autoresponders to handle repetitive inquiries (Section 3.6), which not only saves time but assures that the right information is being conveyed.

(4)
Proactive management.
GTMs are also good at maintaining their mailing list memberships—especially at removing themselves from lists that no longer interest them. They often have multiple email accounts—say, one for family and friends, another for colleagues, and a third for blogs and mailing lists—with each getting different amounts of time and attention.

Fame.
Hopefully, one day you’ll get to the point where your writing commands a large audience. If so, you’ll probably hear from many people who want to tell you what your work means to them, or who need a favor, or both.

In most of my classes for writers, there’s at least one person who approached a well-known writer they admired only to be rudely or cruelly rebuffed. Sometimes, the hurt was enough to foment a block (Section 7.2), and of course such episodes do nothing for the famous writer’s reputation. Fortunately, there have also been occasions where people approached a famous writer and were treated with kindness and decency. Those episodes affirm and inspire not only the person who was involved but the entire class when she tells us.

When someone writes or approaches you expressing admiration it’s only good business sense, as well as common courtesy, to respond. But you don’t have to do so at length—a few heartfelt words are fine. If you don’t want an ongoing communication with the person, don’t use language that implies that you do, such as “Stay in touch.” As always, it’s your job to communicate your needs.

If you get a lot of similar requests, like “How can I get published?” put your answer on your blog or the Q&A section of your website. This will take the burden off AND add traffic to your site—both great outcomes.

As for the requests for money, time, connections, or other assistance, it’s of course your right, and often your obligation, to turn these down, but it’s also your duty to do so with kindness and civility. This may be one of the few situations where a well-thought-out form letter might be appropriate, since the “form” reply itself conveys how busy you are and discourages follow-up.

A
fter you’ve finished your budgeting, you can move onto the rest of the time-management process, which is pretty straightforward:

Step #2: Create a Weekly Schedule.
Take the time allocations you committed to in your time budget and fit them into a weekly schedule. Fill in the non-negotiables first and then the negotiables; also try, whenever possible, to schedule the same activities at the same times on the same days each week. In other words, set up
routines
that help eliminate guesswork around your schedule, and that also help you gear up, physically and mentally, for the scheduled activity. Stephen King, in
On Writing
, says, “Your schedule ... exists in order to habituate yourself, to make yourself ready to dream just as you make yourself ready to sleep by going to bed at roughly the same time each night and following the same ritual as you go.” And Somerset Maugham wrote: “I write only when inspiration strikes. Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

Starting at the same time each day saves you from uncertainty and hesitation, which are invitations to procrastination. As discussed in Section 2.13, you want to calmly glide over to your desk and just start writing without hesitation, trepidation, expectation, or drama.

As mentioned earlier, don’t bother trying to adjust your schedule to include the infrequent or irregular activities—just fit them in as they occur.

Step #3: Follow the Schedule and Track Your Time-Use.
Try following your new schedule for a week. (I say “try” because you probably won’t follow it exactly, or even closely. That’s fine!) While you’re doing that, track your time-use so that you can tell, at the end of the week, how close you came to sticking to the budget.

I suggest using a spreadsheet, which should be handy for most writers. Your time budget will be down the leftmost column, and the successive columns are Saturday, Sunday, Monday ... all the way through to Friday. After that a Total column, so you can tally how much time you invested or spent in each activity over the week. Every time you work on a goal or task for fifteen minutes, add a checkmark in the box for it (e.g., in the “writing” box in the Tuesday column, or the “exercise” box in the Saturday column). It’s important to track every fifteen minutes because if you use longer intervals you risk forgetting exactly how you used the time. (If you’re away from your computer, print out the tracking form or simply keep notes in a pad.) Also, tallying every fifteen minutes helps keep you conscious and focused. If you get into the habit of asking yourself, “Am I doing what I’m supposed to be doing?” every fifteen minutes, there’s a good chance you’ll procrastinate less and start sticking to your schedule more.