The blog

For you who pre­fer lis­ten­ing to read­ing, this post is also avail­able as an episode of the ““Done!”” pod­cast:

Any­thing else, as long as it’s nothing

Here’s how it works:

He sits down in his des­ig­nat­ed writ­ing spot and gets ready.

Once there, he per­mits him­self to do any­thing – look around, day­dream, sit still in his chair – as long as it’s either noth­ing or writing.

He doesn’t set an alarm that rings at a par­tic­u­lar time to force him­self to start. He doesn’t make him­self do free writ­ing or any­thing like that. He allows him­self to do noth­ing for as long as it takes, with­out pressure.

Fair­ly soon – after about five min­utes, says Gaiman – he starts to get bored, and the writ­ing he’s been avoid­ing begins to seem more inter­est­ing. Now he’s tempt­ed to start writ­ing instead, because sure­ly that’s more reward­ing than doing noth­ing (even though ​“noth­ing” is entire­ly allowed)!

Be gen­tle rather than strict

If you’ve heard me lec­ture, you know I’m not a fan of strict, demand­ing, pres­sure-filled solu­tions. Instead, I pre­fer (and advo­cate!) tricks that make it easy for us to do the right thing, so we can get things done with­out so much strug­gle. That’s why Gaiman’s trick res­onat­ed with me – and maybe with you too. I’m sure it can also be applied to oth­er tasks, not just writing.

Do this

If you think Neil Gaiman’s trick might work for you, try it next time you’re about to tack­le a task you tend to postpone.

1. Make your­self unavail­able and hard to reach so you can work undis­turbed. Maybe sit some­where you don’t see oth­er tasks wait­ing, and where you’re not eas­i­ly found?
2. If you don’t get start­ed right away, allow your­self to do noth­ing. And by ​“noth­ing,” I real­ly mean noth­ing. This is the key. Scrolling Insta­gram is some­thing, not noth­ing. Check­ing email is some­thing too, not noth­ing. So is read­ing the news. Tak­ing a nap is also some­thing. But this is noth­ing; you’re allowed to do it freely.
3. If it goes as planned, you get bored. Then notice how tempt­ing it is to start on the task at hand (per­haps writ­ing). Then you begin the task.
4. Now you’re on a roll!

You get going

If you try Neil Gaiman’s trick and it works for you, you’ll get slow-going tasks done more eas­i­ly. You avoid putting them off again and again, which would only make things more stress­ful as dead­lines approach. That’s a feel­ing I think you deserve to prevent.

What do you do?

How do you get going when a task feels slug­gish? Many of us are prone to pro­cras­ti­na­tion on spe­cif­ic tasks, so there are plen­ty of tricks to over­come it. Now I’m curi­ous to hear yours. Maybe you use AI to move for­ward? Please write to me and let me know. I’m all ears.

(We don’t always have the chance to work in a qui­et, undis­turbed place. Check out my tips on how to get inter­rupt­ed with­out mind­ing!)