Procrastination is holding you back from success. As Darth Vader says, “Search your feelings. You know it to be true.” It may be the number-one reason your book is not finished yet. Or the reason your book isn’t selling may be because you’ve procrastinated the promotion. As an author, how can you overcome procrastination?

How do you escape the procrastination prison?

You’re tired, and working harder isn’t an option. How do you find your way to restful, productive writing and book promotion?

I have ten steps to help you overcome procrastination.

Step 1: Take The Hardest Step

The first step to beating procrastination is the easiest and the hardest. You could do it before the end of this episode, but you won’t want to. You will likely make excuses for why you are the exception and why what I am saying doesn’t apply to you. 

The first step is to delete the mobile games on your phone. 

Most mobile games “pay you” some kind of fake in-game currency. Gems, diamonds, coins, tickets, energy, credits, whatever. These payments are meant to manipulate you on a subconscious level. It makes playing the game feel like work. Specifically, it feels like you are working a rewarding job. The game is very flattering and very generous in terms of in-game currency. 

The AIs in the most popular mobile games use machine learning to maximize your play sessions, grab your attention, hold your attention, and keep you from doing anything else. The rewards are intermittent and calculated to maximize addictiveness. 

When it comes to things that matter, like writing and promoting your book,the rewards are uncertain. Most authors lose money. Most books struggle to find an audience.

But play a game like Homescapes, and you’re guaranteed coins, rewards, and constant messages like Great job! and Winner! You might even feel successful.

Your book is real. Your readers are real. The game isn’t. The money you “earn” there isn’t real. The friends you make in the game aren’t real, either. Some couldn’t help you in real life, and some aren’t even human.

Remember, there’s AI behind that game designed to keep you addicted to a fake substitute for real, meaningful work.

I encourage you to delete the games off your phone right now. While it will only take a couple of minutes to delete the games, it will take longer for your brain to reset itself into enjoying real-world work again. You may have an abusive relationship with that AI, and you won’t realize it until you delete the game. The more you don’t want to listen to this advice, the more you need to. 

It’s hard, but it’s worth it.

Come spend time in the real world! Because work is fun. Creating a book is fun! Editing a book to become a better version of itself is fun! Promoting your book to get it in front of readers is fun! Sure, there are challenges along the way, and you might fail, but that sense of uncertainty is what makes it an adventure.

Don’t forget real-world work is so fun that God had to use one of the Ten Commandments to remind us to take breaks.   

Step 2: Answer the Tricky Question

Sometimes, we procrastinate by doing things that, deep down, we know aren’t even necessary. In fact, 80% of our effort often produces just 20% of the impact.

An author might spend thousands of hours trying to become a Bookstagram influencer, only to realize all that work led to just a few dozen copies sold.

One of the best things you can do to boost your productivity is to purge your to-do list. Some people call this a “stop-doing list.”

One approach to procrastination is admitting you will never do some things on your to-do list. And that is ok. You have limited time on this planet, and you must make tough choices about where to spend your time.

When you say “yes” to writing, you are saying “no” to spending that time with your family. You are saying “no” to spending that time making money with your day job. You are saying “no” to spending that time playing mobile games.

Writing requires sacrifice, and for some, the cost is too high. And that’s ok! We need far more readers in this world than authors.  

There’s an old saying that the government should not do well what the government shouldn’t do at all. The same is true for authors. 

I have an entire episode called When to Quit Writing. I recommend all authors listen to it twice: once right away and once when they are seriously considering calling it quits. 

If you don’t have addicting games on your phone and you’ve made sufficient sacrifices to write. What’s next?

Step 3: Schedule Your Time

Professional authors make a habit of writing on a schedule. Hobbyists write when they feel like it; professionals write when it’s time.

For Chris Fox, that meant writing during his time on the bus. John Grisham wrote on legal pads during his lunchtime. Others write at 5 a.m. before the kids wake up. Regardless of when and where they write, the commonality is the consistent schedule.

If your paper calendar isn’t helping, it’s time to switch to a digital one. I use Google Calendar, but you might prefer Outlook or iCal. 

A digital calendar can send a notification to your phone, reminding you when it’s time to write. Imagine your phone prompting you to write instead of distracting you from it.

From there, it’s simply a matter of carving out the time. Scheduling your writing sessions will also give you a clearer picture of how much time you have each week. One of the great advantages of digital calendars is the ability to set recurring events.

I also recommend that you schedule separate time for marketing and promotion. If you are a full-time author, give the first fruits of your morning to writing and the second fruits of your afternoon to marketing and promotion. 

Step 4: Break Up Projects into Next Actions 

Projects like writing a book, starting an email newsletter, building a website, and launching a book are so big it’s hard to know where to start. Not knowing where to start can look a lot like procrastination, and indeed, it can become procrastination. 

Instead of focusing on the entire project, shift your attention to the next action. Ask yourself, “What is the next action I need to take to move this project forward?” For example, if you’re building a website, your next action might be signing up for my free course, How to Make Your Author Website Amazing. In that course, I walk you through the process of building a website step-by-step. Perhaps your next action is buying yourname.com on Namecheap.com. 

Your next action could be figuring out what the next action should be. Sometimes, simply making a plan is a great next action.

I learned the term “next action” from Dave Allen’s seminal book Getting Things Done (Affiliate Link). A good next action should be small enough that you can do it in one sitting and big enough to be worth tracking. Over time, you will get a feel for how big the next action should be. Your next action should be small enough that you can get it done in a single work session but big enough that it’s worth tracking.

Step 5: Work on One Next Action at a Time

Another reason for procrastination is overwhelm. A dog can catch a tennis ball tossed in his general direction, but what if you toss two? Or a dozen? The more tennis balls you throw at a dog, the harder it is for him to catch a single one. 

We are the same way. We tell ourselves we can multitask when we are actually more like that dog than we want to admit. 

An old Chinese proverb says, “The man who chases two rabbits catches neither one.”

The way to catch two rabbits is to first catch one rabbit, tie it up, and then catch the next rabbit. 

So what do you do when you have a lot to do? You work on one thing at a time. A dog can catch dozens of balls if you throw them one at a time. People can work on multiple projects if they take one task at a time. 

Force yourself to finish what is set before you before switching tasks. If you can do this, you will get so much more done each day. I first witnessed this watching my dad do tax returns. When he had a tax return open, he would focus 100% on that tax return, and you could hardly talk to him until he came to a stopping point. I learned about the power of focus from my dad.

In my episode about Brandon Sanderson’s Crop Rotation Method for Restful Rapid Writing, I explain how Sanderson switches between projects as a way to rest his mind. This practice is similar to the crop rotation technique our ancestors developed to keep the soil from getting depleted.

Switching tasks is good if you switch at a stopping point. Switching is bad if you switch too soon. A day filled with a dozen things is a day filled with distractions. 

Step 6: Find a Community

Nothing motivates you to write like knowing your critique group expects your new chapter on Tuesday. Having fellow authors celebrate your success helps more than you realize, and the same can be true with an online community.

To help you find community, I created a brand-new project, the Send Your First Email Challenge. In just five days, you’ll create an engaging email newsletter. There’ll be no more guesswork, no more procrastination, just results. With about 30 minutes of work per day, you’ll go from having no newsletter to a fully operational one, complete with subscribers eager to read your first email.

In the challenge, everyone progresses through each day together. If you have been looking for a community, you will find it in the Send Your First Email Challenge. The best part? It’s free!

I hope you love the challenge so much that you’ll stick around for the full Author Email Academy.

In the five-day challenge, you will learn how to get your first dozen subscribers, build your first landing page, and send your first email. 

In the Author Email Academy, you will learn how to get your first 1,000 subscribers, create a reader magnet, and set up an automated onboarding sequence. 

The inaugural Send Your First Email Challenge starts on Monday, April 8, 2025. I may lead another email challenge in the future, but for those of you listening to this episode when it comes out, don’t procrastinate! Sign up for the challenge today!

Learn more at FirstEmailChallenge.com.

Step 7: Sleep

For most of history, artificial light was prohibitively expensive for everyone but the aristocracy. Candles took hours to make by hand, so unless you had peasants to make candles for you, the nights were too dark to work. This means that unless you are descended from aristocrats, your ancestors slept when the sun was down because there wasn’t enough light to do anything else.

In fact, in the winter, people would sleep so long that they would wake up around midnight, be awake for 30-60 minutes, and then go back to sleep for the “second sleep of the night.” That’s 12 hours of sleep or more!

This “biphasic sleep” gave our ancestors the energy and dynamism to found new cities, institutions, and empires. Today, we stagger around like sleep-deprived zombies surrounded by crumbling infrastructure we don’t have the energy to maintain. 

So what happened? Moby Dick happened.

Everything started to change when we learned to harvest whale oil. Oil lamps fueled by whale oil meant more people could afford to stay up after it got dark. When whales became scarce, someone invented kerosene. Kerosene was even cheaper than whale oil, and in some cities, you could get it piped to your house and have constant light all night long. Then, the electric lightbulb hit the scene, enabling the poor to stay up after dark.

In the modern era, people often stay awake until midnight. Remember, that is when our ancestors were waking up from the first sleep of the night. We have so effectively cut out the first sleep of the night that many people don’t know it existed. 

This leads us to the next cause of procrastination: fatigue. As the father of a six-month-old, I have a special perspective on sleep deprivation. When you are well-rested, everything is easier. The colors are brighter, you’re more creative, and you have greater emotional control, impulse control, energy, focus, and confidence. In short, you’re a better version of yourself when you are rested. 

I wish I had a simple solution for fatigue, but I don’t. 

I hold a glowing LED phone screen in front of my face just like the next guy. And, yes, I do it while complaining about how tired I am. As the father of small children, I have learned that if you can’t get quality sleep, shoot for quantity sleep. 

My peasant ancestors, who slept for 12 hours each night, were sleeping beds of straw and dirt with no windows, no air conditioning, and no toilet. As Napoleon supposedly said, “Quantity has a quality all its own.” 

One thing that might alleviate fatigue is to turn off the lights in the evening. This will help you generate melatonin, a hormone that tells your body it is time to sleep. Light inhibits melatonin production, so the more light you surround yourself with, the less sleepy you will be.

Since I’m surrounded by light all day, I take Luna (Affiliate Link), a melatonin supplement I found on Amazon. It also has a bunch of herbs like chamomile and passionflower. I don’t know much about the science, and it’s not a good idea to take health advice from a sleep-deprived podcaster, but I sleep better when I take Luna than when I don’t. 

Sleep has such a big impact on creativity and productivity it deserves a whole episode. Let me know if anyone knows a sleep expert you think would be a good guest. 

Step 8: Embrace the Broken

Sometimes, we procrastinate because we are afraid. Now, I hear you saying, “I’m not afraid.” Of course, you don’t use the word “fear.” Most authors use fancy writer words instead. Words like “perfectionist” and phrases like “writer’s block.” But perfectionism is just fear. Nothing you will ever do in your entire life will be perfect. Perfection is unattainable. 

Notice how you view shifts when you see a perfectionist as a coward who is afraid of criticism.

If something is worth doing, it is worth doing poorly. If you want to do it well, do it a little bit better the next time. This is practice, and it is the only way to get better. It’s true for painting, writing, music, and podcasting. 

Sitting on your hands because your work is not good enough makes you a worse writer. You are the youngest you will ever be right now. Tomorrow, you will be one day older. Next year, God willing, you will be a year older, but you might also be dead. We don’t know how much time we have left. The longer you wait to start practicing, the less skillful you’ll be by the time you stop writing.

So stop making excuses. Stop lying to yourself that you have writer’s block. Writer’s block is a myth. There is no plumbers block, lawyers block, or musicians block. Professionals are willing to practice. Be a writer who is willing to practice your craft. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it.  

Step 9: Create a Tortoise Enclosure

Sometimes procrastination is a factor of where as much as when. Having a place where you can focus is a powerful procrastination-beating tactic. One way to focus is to get an Apple Silicon laptop. It will free you from having to write near an electrical outlet. I’ll have my 2025 Laptop Buyers Guide for Authors ready soon, but in the meantime, the M4 Macbook Air (affiliate link) is a no-brainer purchase.  

I worked on this episode while sitting at the park while my kids played on the playscape. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, and my kids were getting along at least half the time. It was magical.

You might need a zone in your house where you are free from interruptions. This may be a special desk or a special room. Chris Fox and John Cleese call this a “tortoise enclosure.” A tortoise enclosure is free from digital interruptions. It is a place of silence and contemplation. 

It is hard to complete tasks when your distraction box won’t stop buzzing. Contemplation is a powerful tool for creativity, and it is hard to be both connected and contemplative at the same time. If you don’t have a special place to go, consider turning your phone on airplane mode to disconnect from the distractions of the internet. 

In haste the mind doth race, a hare unbound,

Yet swiftness oft doth scatter thought astray,

While tortoise pace, in stillness, peace is found,

A quiet realm where muse may freely play.

Distractions buzz like flies on summer’s breeze,

Each ping and call a thief of tranquil thought,

But in my shell, I shun such clam’rous pleas,

A sanctuary slow and dearly bought.

With pen in hand, I let the silence grow,

Ideas, like seedlings, root in patient ground,

No rush, no roar, just whispers soft and low,

Till sudden blooms of insight do abound.

So here I linger, free from worldly din,

A tortoise mind lets creativity begin.

Step 10: Embrace the Stakes 

If you are sleep-deprived, alone, overwhelmed, or unsure about your next action, a deadline will just stress you out. Many authors add accountability when they actually need focus. Accountability is the last step for a reason. Deadlines work best if you have already taken the other steps. 

But sometimes, we know exactly what we should be doing and how to do it; we just lack the motivation to act. That’s where deadlines come in.

You’ve had deadlines your whole life in school and at work. The key to making deadlines effective is adding high stakes. If you miss your deadline, there needs to be a meaningful consequence. This could be either a reward or a punishment. For example, some authors won’t let themselves watch Netflix or play video games until they’ve hit their daily word count goal.

I was in a mastermind group where one author promised to send us each $20 if he missed a deadline. He did miss his deadline, and the rest of us got $20.

The stakes must encourage you to work harder.

Remember that your goal must be an attainable goal. If it’s impossible, the deadline will lose its power. 

Another tip is to break big deadlines into little ones. If you want your ten-chapter book completed by the first of May, how many chapters do you need to write each week? How many words do you need to write each day? Breaking big goals into little ones allows you to track your progress and place smaller stakes on the smaller goals to help you stay on target.  

Final Thoughts

Before the Novel Marketing Conference, I survey all attendees. We use their answers to place them in writers groups with similar authors. One question we ask is, “How many email subscribers do you have?” The results are shocking. Last year, 33% of our attendees had zero subscribers on their email lists. The Novel Marketing Conference attracts a more advanced author than the typical writers conference, and many of our attendees have thousands of subscribers. Yet one-third of the folks flying to Austin had not taken the very first step toward marketing their books. 

They needed help. That was the inspiration behind the Send Your First Email Challenge. In just one week, we’ll take you from zero to over a dozen subscribers, so you’re not just writing emails, you’re writing to an audience. In a matter of days, you will have started the process of email list growth.

The best time to start an email newsletter was ten years ago. The second-best time is right now. During the challenge, we will all complete the challenge together, at the same time, and as a community. At the end of the week, I will host a celebratory Q&A for everyone who has completed the challenge. 

An easy way to fight procrastination is to join the Send Your First Email Challenge. You can sign up for free at FirstEmailChallenge.com. 

Featured Patrons

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Related Episodes

• How to Prevent Writing Burnout
• How to Create a Landing Page
• Brandon Sanderson’s Crop Rotation Method for Restful Rapid Writing
• How to Write Faster and Better with Chris Fox