#71: The best time to write is the worst time to write
Do you tell yourself that if only you had a day of uninterrupted time ahead of you (and, of course, the right stationery), you'd finally be able to get some writing done - only to procrastinate your precious writing time away when you do finally get what you need? Thought so. Your problem is that you wouldn't know a good writing opportunity even if it walked up to you and poked you in the eye. Put down that stationery catalogue and let your Imperfectionist friend sort you out.
Episode transcript:
Rethink what a good writing environment looks like.
You’re listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. I’m Dr Rebecca Roache. I’m a coach and a philosopher at the University of London, and week by week I’ll be drawing on philosophical analysis and coaching insights to help you dump perfectionism and flourish on your own terms.
Hello again! Didn’t I say in the last episode that I did some of the preparation for it while sitting in the garden in the sun? Because, looking out the window now, the sky is grey and it looks like it’s going to rain. It’s now dark when I get up in the morning. It’s time to cosy up indoors with tea and blankets, and maybe think about turning on the central heating - at least, it is here in the UK. Last winter I bought a little fan heater to keep under the desk in my office, because I was reluctant to heat the entire house when it’s just me here, holed up in the smallest room in the house. Though the cats would love that, of course. The last house I lived in had stone floors and on some days when I was working at home my feet didn’t warm up all day - all winter, even. I’d be sitting at the table trying to work and all I could think about was how cold my feet were. Which can be pretty distracting, or at least - and check out this amazing segue from the weather to this episode’s topic - I allowed myself to make it into a distraction. You know the sort of thing: I can’t possibly write when my feet are this cold, I need to spend the rest of the day researching the best methods to keep warm, which isn’t a waste of time, shut up, if anything it’s an investment, because just think of how productive I’m going to be when I’m a bit more comfortable.
I’m still making my way through - and savouring as I go - that gem of a book I mentioned in the last episode, Joli Jensen’s Write No Matter What. Something she discusses in that book crystallised for me a theme in my own struggles with writing, and in the struggles of my coaching clients and writerly colleagues. Jensen talks about the ‘fantasy writing space’ - the perfect environment that, if only we had it, would enable us to release whatever it is that’s standing in the way of the easy, flowing, productive, fertile writing that we think we should be doing every day, and which we worry might be the business-as-usual state of everyone except for us. Some features of this fantasy writing space relate to the location, as when we tell ourselves that we’re never going to manage to make real progress unless we go on one of those writing retreats somewhere picturesque and remote. Some features relate to architectural features of where we write, like when we tell ourselves that we need a desk in a characterful, atmospheric building, in front of a big window with a nice view at which we can gaze pensively. Sometimes it’s to do with what’s in our working environment - we can’t possibly work with that rack of drying laundry behind us, or while sitting at a desk that wobbles. Sometimes it relates to having the right tools, which is why some of us spend hours sourcing the perfect pens and notebooks and planners and filing systems. Sometimes it has to do with temperature, as when I was telling myself that I couldn’t write while my feet were cold. Sometimes it has to do with time: we need a clear diary to be able to write, and we can’t possibly write in fits and starts in between meetings and pings from our email inbox. You get the idea.
Now, the belief that our writing environment matters isn’t completely wrongheaded. Sometimes, the space we’re in and what’s going on around us can make it difficult to write. Jensen talks about how the academic environment, in which we risk constant interruption by students and colleagues, whether in person or via email, and where we’re expected to get our writing done in the same space that we mark essays and write references and deal with the death-by-a-thousand-cuts onslaught of bureaucratic demands, is actually hostile to writing. Being in a room that’s way too hot or cold really can make it difficult to focus. It’s not like these things are completely irrelevant. But the fact that they are relevant is actually part of the problem: we fixate on tweaking our environment because it feels like we’re doing something relevant and important, when too often we’re using it as a distraction from what we really ought to be doing.
So. Getting carried away with creating the absolute Goldilocks writing environment can be a problem. Got it. We already know this, deep down, don’t we? We laugh at ourselves for spending hours on the trivial but not completely irrelevant stuff like finding the right stationery and choosing the best font. We laugh because we know that we’d be better off just doing the writing with non-ideal stationery and drafting entire papers in Comic Sans than wasting hours tweaking these things instead of writing. But here’s something we don’t tend to talk about, despite its being just as important. What happens when we do get all this peripheral stuff right? You know, when we do get to go on a writing retreat and have hours of uninterrupted, email-free time ahead of us, a comfortable chair, a nice desk in front of an inspiring view in a room that’s the right temperature, someone to do our cooking and laundry, and all the rest of it.
Now, sadly for me, I’ve never been on a writing retreat, neither have I lined up all my other writerly ducks in a row in the way that would be required to create anything that might qualify as a fantasy writing space. But I have a pretty good idea of what would happen if I did. At least, I have a pretty good idea of what would happen to an earlier version of myself, a version that existed in the days when I really, seriously did buy into the belief that if only I could get my writing environment right, everything else would fall into place. It’s this. I’d get my fantasy writing environment, and I’d be fucking terrified. There would be no more excuses. It would be time to make good on my promise to uncork the Champagne bottle of brilliant ideas, which I’d spent years shaking up without release because I never had the right desk and my feet had never attained the ideal temperature. Come on, Rebecca. It’s show time. Sit down at that perfect desk and show the world what you’re made of. And it wouldn’t happen. Realising my fantasy writing space wouldn’t be a recipe for abundant productivity at all. It would be a recipe for writer’s block.
So, yes, most of us know, deep down, that fixating on the fantasy writing environment is perfectionist nonsense, and telling ourselves that we can’t write until we’ve created it stands in the way of our getting important stuff done. But let’s not ignore the flipside of it, which is this. Fixating on the fantasy writing environment, which involves feeding ourselves the message that if only we could get the environment right, the words will start to flow, makes the prospect of writing absolutely terrifying on those occasions when our circumstances are conducive to writing. We’ve built up the expectation that the right environment will do wonders for our productivity, and disappointment awaits. Because the truth is that when we do get everything lined up right - we have somewhere nice to write, a few hours without any pesky commitments, tea and snacks on hand, and all the rest of it - the prospect of getting down to writing feels, well, pretty much the same as it does when conditions are less than ideal. Except now we have no excuse not to get right down to it, and we have the weight of expectation that we’ve created: because if we can’t be productive now, when all the stars are aligned, then maybe it’s not the circumstances. Maybe we’re the problem. It’s us.
Now, in reality, things aren’t as dramatic as this. It’s not a case of waking up one morning and finding ourselves magically transported to a cosy, distraction-free cabin in the woods with central heating, a kettle, and wifi, and then finding that we’ve brought our pesky aversion to getting stuff done along with us. This tension between not being able to write because the conditions aren’t right and then also being too terrified to write when the conditions are right plays out a lot more subtly than I’ve described here. Based on my own experience, and what other people have told me, it looks more like this: we tell ourselves ‘I really should do some writing’, and then we glance at the clock and see that there’s only 20 minutes until an appointment with a student, so of course there’s no point in starting now. Or, ‘I really should do some writing, but this coffee shop I’m in is too noisy’. Or, ‘I really should do some writing, but I don’t have my laptop or my notes or a printout of my latest draft with me’. All these little pockets of time and space that we won’t even entertain using to make progress with our writing because they’re just non-ideal in all sorts of ways. And then what happens when we have a few clear hours of peace, quiet, and access to a desk and a laptop? We procrastinate. We tell ourselves we’ll start in a moment, just after we’ve done the Wordle or tidied our desk or renewed our car insurance. It’s the same thing again: ‘I can’t write because the conditions are wrong’ versus ‘I can’t write because the conditions are right but now I expect too much of myself and I’m terrified’. Either way, not much writing gets done.
So, how do we fix this? Well, I’ve got a low-stress solution for you, friend. Look out for shitty opportunities to write, and have a go at writing anyway. Here’s a fun fact for you: one of the most productive writing sessions I had when I was writing my book was a time when I took my kids to a soft play centre, and on a whim I took my laptop along with me, not really expecting to get anything important done, but thinking that maybe I could at least tie up a few loose ends while the kids were playing. If you’re not familiar with soft play centres, they are basically massive rooms full of ball pools and foam-padded climbing equipment, into which is released a horde of children, who run around with cake-smeared faces yelling and screaming at a volume that is exceeded only by the soundtrack of Frozen that is playing on a loop. At least, that’s what it was like the last time I was in such a place - thankfully my kids have outgrown this sort of thing and I don’t have to go any more. Anyway, I managed to find a table that wasn’t dripping with Sunny Delight and spat-out Haribos, and opened my laptop. And somehow, amazingly, I managed to get a solid hour of writing done. I hadn’t planned for that to happen. The idea that any adult would be capable of forming a coherent thought in such an environment hadn’t even occurred to me. I don’t know quite how it worked, and I doubt I’d be able to repeat it if I tried, but I’d put money on my rock-bottom expectations of myself playing a key role here. I hadn’t gone there to write. The place was the antithesis of the fantasy writing space. So, while any writing I managed to do there was a bonus, not writing was a completely acceptable outcome.
I’d love to say that that experience cured me of my writing anxieties and my belief that, for me to be able to write, the conditions had to be right, but that’s not the way real life works, is it? I forgot all about it and went back to bad habits. But, recently, I got to thinking about it again after discussing writing habits with colleagues and clients, and after reading Joli Jensen’s remarks about the fantasy writing space. I started noticing when I was falling into the pattern of dismissing opportunities to write because they didn’t fit my view of what a good writing opportunity was like, and questioning them. Here’s an example from last week: my notes were spread over the dining table, and it occurred to me that maybe I could make a little bit of progress with my writing project, but there were only 15 minutes left before cat dinner time, so there was no point making a start with so little time available. And then I thought, hang on, the fact that this is such a bad time to get any writing done actually makes it a fantastic time. Because there’s no pressure. If I sit down and don’t get anything done, I’m not going to be beating myself up about it. By contrast, on those occasions when I have hours of writing time ahead of me, I’m putting a lot of pressure on myself to produce, which can make it hard to make a start. I sat down amid the impatient cats and got on with it for 15 minutes. I made progress - in fact, I made more progress than I’ve sometimes made on days that (in theory at least) have been wholly devoted to writing. So, I’ve started a little game with myself. Look out for non-ideal opportunities to make progress on a writing project. It could be glancing over some notes or a draft while waiting in line at the pharmacy. Or looking up a reference while I’m waiting for the kettle to boil. One way to think of this borrows from the world of exercise. You might have come across the idea of ‘movement snacks’ - the idea that, if you’re a busy person who finds it hard to fit a workout into your schedule, you can look for opportunities to do just a few seconds or minutes of exercise, like taking a walk for a couple of minutes in between meetings or stretching your shoulders on your way to get a coffee. Just as exercise doesn’t have to mean an hour long HIIT class, writing doesn’t have to mean entire afternoons hunched over the laptop either. Maybe you can find some opportunities for writing snacks in your day.
Helpful as I find this way of making progress, I do worry that I might be giving you the impression that you always have to be on the lookout for opportunities to be productive - you can never just be. Perhaps you’re listening to this and rolling your eyes and thinking, ‘Jeez, can’t I just eavesdrop on other people’s conversations while I’m waiting in the pharmacy? Can’t I sit on the bus and stare out the window? Am I meant to be constantly producing now?’ And my answer is: of course you can do those things. In fact, my suggestion of looking for non-ideal writing opportunities only works if you are allowed to do those things - and that means you need to be careful not to overdo it. Maybe grab these writing opportunities just a couple of times a week. Be half-hearted about it. Because the idea is that these are opportunities when expectations are non-existent. You’re not supposed to be writing when you’re waiting for a bus or boiling the kettle of standing in the shower. If you don’t write while you’re doing those things, you haven’t fallen short of expectations. (Admittedly, it’s going to be hard to get much writing done while you’re in the shower.) But if, in situations like those, you do manage to get something done, then that’s a win. It’s win-win, basically. But it’s only win-win if writing is completely optional in the first place.
If you do manage to grab a couple of writing snacks throughout your week, there’s another bonus in store for you too. When you do that, you help keep your project fresh in your mind. And that means that, not only are you giving your subconscious stuff to work on in the background, but it’ll also be easier for you to make a start on your writing next time you come to it. Remembering where you left off the last time you looked at it won’t be quite such a challenge, and it will take less effort to get going.
So, it’s turning out that terrible writing opportunities are actually not that terrible, after all. Maybe you can even - and I can’t quite believe I’m saying this - have some fun thinking of where and when you might be able to grab your next writing snack. Just don’t, you know, drop your draft down the toilet, or knock your laptop onto the floor if you decide to have a go at writing while you’re giving birth. Moderation in all things, friend. Speak soon, take care.
I’m Dr Rebecca Roache, and you’ve been listening to The Academic Imperfectionist. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe on whatever podcast app you like to use. I want to help as many people as I can with these episodes, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d share the podcast with any friends who you think might find it useful, and if you’d consider leaving a review on your podcast app. If you’d like to support the podcast financially, you can do that at patreon.com/academicimperfectionist. For more information about me, the podcast, and my coaching, please visit the website - academicimperfectionist.com. You’ll find links there to The Academic Imperfectionist on Twitter and Facebook too. If you have an idea or a request for a future episode of The Academic Imperfectionist, please drop me a line, either via my website or by tweeting your idea with the hashtag #AcademicImperfectionist. Thank you for listening, and see you next time!
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