How to beat procrastination?

RyanElektric · 2014-01-08T13:50:38.000Z

Record everything: it’s a rule I vowed to live by and what finally got me to really start doing this 4 months ago. Avoid perfectionism- nothing will ever be exactly what you imagined it to be when you started walking down the path towards it (with all things in life). With music, it’s easy to walk away from something good because it doesn’t conform to your expectations or your “style”. Which leads me to my next point:
Try to make different types of music: too many people put labels on themselves. That’s no way to be creative! It’s a marketing strategy…if you should end up in a position to have a nice sized following, let the fans or critics put labels on you- it’s totally out of your hands at that point anyway!

Plus, If you’re worried about what anyone else thinks about what you’re creating, you can bet that you’ll have a hard time starting or finishing a project or that you’ll lose interest in it entirely.

Have fun. Collaborate with other people. Go outside every once and a while and get some sun and talk to other people in person (not just on forums like this…)! Creative impulses can leave you totally alone (even when surrounded with other people)- emotional and/or physical isolation has it’s benefits, but you need to find a balance. (*this is one I need to follow myself).

udenjoe · 2014-01-08T15:58:21.000Z

Make it easier to work. Make things simple and easy. Start small. Work smarter, not harder. Eventually you’ll realize an hour flew by and you may or may not have made progress. Don’t let the lack of progress hinder you.

I’ve moved my A4 and OT to my kitchen table. I don’t have an excuse to turn them on and work on them for at least an hour a day.

Remember, the dead don’t sleep. They don’t dream nor wake up. Forget those people who say that.

TrabanT · 2014-01-08T18:52:03.000Z

what are YOUR circumstances?

do you have kids?

smoke weed?

do 15 push ups every morning?

children?

day job?

depression?

anxiety?

goals in life? major drawbacks? developed a habit of X Y Z? Friends? Family?

what does your hygiene look like? psycho hygiene? work ethics? support groups around?

go to bed at 2 am, get up super late? go to bed drunk wake up hungover?

go running twice a week?

do X push ups when you read this, and do push ups everytime you think of push ups… I forgot, went from 35 to 5

inevitablecrafts · 2014-01-08T19:04:24.000Z

[ul]
[li]dont use your computer[/li]
[li]use a name convention that makes sense for you and save everything[/li]
[li]work on sounds instead of patterns or songs and you will automatically need one of the two sooner or later to brows though and develop things further in times of procrastination[/li]
[li]change musical style[/li]
[/ul]

Allerian · 2014-01-08T23:41:21.000Z

Roll up your sleeves. Works for me.

Geneoart · 2014-01-09T00:16:42.000Z

Record your sessions then chop and paste them. Live jamming is always more fun for me. It also gets me in an creative altered state much faster.
Portable equipment is a great tool for this as well, like a iPad, volcas, or op-1. I’ll give my endorsement to the op-1. It’s the sh!t!!

zfigz · 2014-01-09T00:19:24.000Z

""cosmosuave"":

Have kids and then realize how little time you have for music or other things you took for granted (like reading the paper)… After about the first 8 years the amount of time for yourself increases… The time you have now use it wisely…

This…

I just had my first kiddo this past March, I’m also a first time husband, and first time teacher. My free time is extremely limited now, though, I just built a live rig. It’s nice to be able to move my setup to different places in the house. I plan on bringing it to work (my fifth grade clsssroom) so that I can stay late at work to be creative.

Before all the big changes in my life, I found that exercise and weed were good motivators in creating. Also, I find it extremely important to have a focus/goal when making music (e.g. Sound design,
chord progression, etc).

In any case, just keep doing it even when you don’t want to, there’s really no such thing as inspiration, you just gotta be diligent in just doing it til you sleep. It also helps to get up early on weekends.

LordAlister · 2014-01-09T00:29:25.000Z

I embrace my procrastination sometimes. Its best to realize that maybe you just need some down time and put your mind on hold.
One day you’ll fire it all back up and come up with some pretty interesting things.

NRain · 2014-01-09T03:01:13.000Z

I have found on occasion that reverse engineering and recreating a challenging track helps get the juices / motivation flowing.

FreeFall · 2014-01-09T06:53:26.000Z

Sometimes conjuring inspiration is like conjuring a fart. If you push too hard, it might come out shit!

However, after twenty years of being a graphic designer and having had MANY occasions where I absolutely had to produce something, whether I felt like it or not, is “borrowing” a little something from another artist. It can sometimes be just enough to get the engines running. Most of the time it will turn into something of your own anyway.

Low_Life · 2014-01-09T08:54:13.000Z

I’m still on my personal step 1: Stop listening to synth demos and browsing gear forums and accept that what I have now can do anything I’d need at this point.

But I want to get rid of my R3…

Slick_Chris · 2014-01-09T11:17:37.000Z

""Allerian"":

Roll up your sleeves. Works for me.

…the words of someone who’s never suffered from (or should I say subjected themselves to) real procrastination.
Coincidentally, this appeared on my facebook feed this morning and it’s one of the best articles on procrastination I’ve ever read. I suspect many on this thread will recognise the Dark Playground:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html

smais · 2014-01-09T12:04:22.000Z

[quote=““Slick Chris””]

[quote=“Allerian”]Roll up your sleeves. Works for me.
[/quote]

…the words of someone who’s never suffered from (or should I say subjected themselves to) real procrastination.
Coincidentally, this appeared on my facebook feed this morning and it’s one of the best articles on procrastination I’ve ever read. I suspect many on this thread will recognise the Dark Playground:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html[/quote]
Thanks for that blog post, a really good explanation for my own procrastination.

Daisuk · 2014-01-09T12:14:26.000Z

[quote=““Slick Chris””]

[quote=“Allerian”]Roll up your sleeves. Works for me.
[/quote]

…the words of someone who’s never suffered from (or should I say subjected themselves to) real procrastination.
Coincidentally, this appeared on my facebook feed this morning and it’s one of the best articles on procrastination I’ve ever read. I suspect many on this thread will recognise the Dark Playground:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html[/quote]
Haha, that’s a great article. ‘The Dark Playground’, oh, how many hours have I not spent there!

miketheman · 2014-01-09T12:16:47.000Z

[quote=““Slick Chris””]

[quote=“Allerian”]Roll up your sleeves. Works for me.
[/quote]

…the words of someone who’s never suffered from (or should I say subjected themselves to) real procrastination.
Coincidentally, this appeared on my facebook feed this morning and it’s one of the best articles on procrastination I’ve ever read. I suspect many on this thread will recognise the Dark Playground:
http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrastinate.html[/quote]
Thanks for that link, it was a great lunchread!

Actually when reading part 1 and 2 of that blog post, I remembered something that I´d like to share (taking a course in this would be the recommended non-refundable lessons they mention in part 2).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_programming

poonti · 2014-01-09T12:53:49.000Z

""FreeFall"":

Sometimes conjuring inspiration is like conjuring a fart. If you push too hard, it might come out shit!

Hahaha, so true!

zfigz · 2014-01-09T12:57:07.000Z

Speaking of good reads, check this article/blog about “daily rituals” and how creative minds prepare themselves for creating.

Slate Magazine – 17 Apr 13

Can You Become a Great Writer by Emulating Flaubert’s Work Habits?

About six years ago, I started collecting any information I could find about the daily routines of writers, artists, and other creative people—first...

inevitablecrafts · 2014-01-09T13:24:33.000Z

nlp the answer for everything

miketheman · 2014-01-09T14:58:14.000Z

""inevitablecrafts"":

nlp the answer for everything

Well… I don´t know about that.

I haven´t taken any course or something, just read a book about it years ago and found it very interesting. But I don´t know how well it actually works, I guess it depends on how determined you are in getting it to work for you. Have anyone here tried it?

jonah · 2014-01-12T07:15:37.000Z

i dunno, music making is my main form of procrastination.

procrastination gets a bum rap.

wandering, cooking, making art, reading books, chatting with people in real life, going to a nice restaurant, a good movie, listening to a long record, i even feel games like tetris or shoot em ups, are refueling forms of procrastination. the trick is using things that get boring if you do them too long.

it’s much easier to get what i want done in a day if i give myself time to process and de-stress in a healthy way. otherwise, im much more drawn to the bad kind of procrastination, (basically anything online!) which leaves me feeling tired and more stressed.

i mean, being creative means being present and aware and of course that’s work you need to unwind/decompress from. but i agree with others, for me, it’s just something you do/show up for.

i read (part of it, haha ) this great book called “how to be idle” it’s good encouragement to be lazy. http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/0060779691

and disable anything networked. procrastinate checking email. i have a bunch of sand box video games i picked up on sale that i’ve been meaning to get around to playing…