I find your sloth very motivating

I’m having one of those days when the writing is just not happening. I can’t make myself open my work in progress, the words are coming like molasses, and I’m just bopping around the internet doing absolutely anything to avoid doing some actual writing. And it’s in this state of advanced procrastination that I see you post something like this:

“Was going to work on my novel tonight but Toddlers and Tiara’s marathon wooo!”

“Managed only 100 words before I got distracted by tumblr lol”

“Haven’t written anything since last year’s NaNoWriMo, gotta get back to it someday (-:”

I suppose a good person would read these tweets and feel some kind of procrastination kinship but, in my tiny Grinch heart, I have the opposite reaction.

It’s smug superiority. It’s the satisfied feeling that at least I’m not THAT bad. It’s an insufferable assurance that I would NEVER neglect my writing for such trivial reasons. And, most importantly, it’s an absolute burst of motivational fire that makes me shut whatever non-writing I’m doing down, cold turkey, and get right back to work.

Even this adorable upside down sloth is judging you.

I feel like I should apologize for finding your sloth so motivating but I’m not going to. Because it works every dang time. In fact, nothing makes me notice that I’m procrastinating or being a big ole but-I-don’t-wanna whiner than seeing someone else do it. It snaps me right the heck out of it and gets my butt in the chair and right back to work.

Writing isn’t a competition. Publishing isn’t a race. There’s plenty for all. But watching you defer your dreams for immediate gratification is just the gut punch I need to remind me that, if you want to make things happen, you gotta do the work and not everyone is willing to put in the work. You help me remember that I am willing. So I stop dithering and get right back to it.

If you’re a serial slacker, this might be hard to hear. But motivation works different for everyone and this is something that works for me.

As for you? Well, just keep on slacking I guess. I personally find it tremendously helpful.

And if the thought of me judging you for being lackadaisical makes you so angry that the next time, instead of proudly posting about how you’re procrastinating, you get self-conscious enough to actually get down to work instead? Well, that’d be pretty great too, wouldn’t it?