How to beat procrastination and get your copywriting done – 7 tried and tested tips

Having recently got a bit behind with my own marketing, I realised that I’d been procrastinating again. So yes, let me say upfront, I am not claiming to be perfect when it comes to beating procrastination! But, in the five years I have been a freelance copywriter, I have never missed a deadline for a customer. In fact, I normally deliver copy ahead of any set time limit.

So that got me to wondering – how can I come up with the goods time and time again on behalf of my customers, even when the inspiration juices aren’t always free flowing, when I struggle to do the same for my own business? And can I do something to change this?

It’s not a new phenomenon. There’s an adage about cobbler’s shoes that says although cobblers have all the skills, and all the tools needed to have the best shoes around, they often have the worst.

The same is true of marketers. Despite the skills they have to create powerful marketing strategies and put words on a page in the most effective way for customers, they often deploy little to no marketing effort for their own businesses, and their websites host the least populated blogs.

There are a few reasons for these discrepancies including the lack of fixed deadlines, and the fact they are busy putting customers first and have less time or inclination to focus on their own shoes or marketing.

How do I overcome procrastination when it hits?

Although having a clear deadline and the promise of a satisfied customer at the end of a piece of work is always enough to motivate me to get the job done on time, the ugly head of procrastination does sometimes appear when I’m doing client work too. And this is what I do to overcome it (and what I need to do more when it comes to my own marketing efforts).

• Say what you see – The first thing I find helpful is to call myself out for my procrastination. Procrastination is sneaky because it makes us convince ourselves that other less important tasks simply cannot wait. It’s OK to give in to this sometimes, but don’t deny it, because that’s not helpful. Simply acknowledging what’s going on can sometimes be enough to snap us out of it.
• Give yourself a break – Literally and metaphorically giving yourself a break can be useful. We can’t all be firing on all cylinders all the time. If you’re struggling to do your work, accept it and allow yourself some understanding. If you can afford to without missing a deadline, take a physical break from your workspace too, it might help to refocus the mind quicker than if you force yourself to sit staring at your work and beating yourself up for not starting it yet.
• Focus – Sometimes the reason we procrastinate is because we have too many things on the to do list. We can dash around starting lots of jobs because we know they’re important, but don’t actually get around to finishing any of them. When this is my problem, I always revisit my physical to do list.

Make sure you have everything written down including personal and professional tasks you need to complete in the short and medium term and then highlight the items you need to complete that day or that week. This helps focus the mind on what is actually important, without the distraction of everything else you know you need to do.

• Start small – There’s another reason that writing it all down can help. If you can see a list of important tasks in front of you, you might be able to pick off some of the smaller jobs to do first. This can be enough to reset your stalled mindset and reignite your productivity.
• Switch things up – The other thing I find helpful is switching up my work environment. I’m lucky enough to have my own office at home where I can shut the door on any distractions and fully focus on my writing. Most of the time this is the only place I want to be, but every now and then I know I’m going to be more productive if I move to where I want to be.

This might be snuggled up on the sofa in the winter or sitting outside listening to the birds in the summer, but I have learned that by allowing myself this flexibility, I am more productive than if I force myself to sit at my desk in my ‘proper’ working environment.

• Reward yourself – Sometimes when it’s really time to get cracking on that piece of work, it can help to bribe yourself! Promise yourself that if you can spend 30 minutes doing something towards the task you’ve been avoiding you can stop for a coffee or go for a short walk.

Because getting started is often the hardest part, you will probably find that after your coffee or your walk you can continue the task without any issue. Or you might even find you get so engrossed in the piece of writing; you blast through your 30-minute window of work.

• Block out your time – While ideally, we can start small, acknowledge when we’re procrastinating, and take a break, sometimes a piece of writing simply needs to be done. At times like this, when you simply have to push through, I find it helpful to block out my time.

For example, depending on how far into a project I am, I might allow myself 20 minutes to finish researching for a particular piece of writing and then if I need to, I’ll take a 5-minute break before spending 15 minutes on planning out the piece. Once again, if I need a quick break I’ll take it, before spending the next 20 minutes making a start on the piece of writing.

It’s surprising what a positive impact making a start can have and breaking it down in this way can be a helpful way to do just that.

I started off by saying I’m not perfect at avoiding procrastination and I’ll say it again! I need to do better, especially when it comes to working on my own marketing copywriting. I fully intend to continue to use these tactics to continue delivering ahead of deadline for my clients, and to hopefully improve my productivity when working on less deadline driven copywriting for my own business.

How do you cope with procrastination when it hits? I’d love to know. And if there are certain pieces of copy, like regular blog posts or feature articles that you always find hard to complete, e-mail me at [email protected] because even if my own blog gets missed every now and then, I never miss a deadline (external or self-imposed) for my customers!