by Dr. Diana Stout

Did you know that our habits are science-driven, and so is our procrastination? Have you ever tried to create a better writing habit only to fail or fall into procrastination?

Would you be surprised to learn that it’s not about you, but the science of you? And, that changing or creating a habit doesn’t have to be hard? Once I understood the science—the why—I better understood the how. How to make the changes without feeling deprived or having to work harder.

My Journey With This Topic

Earlier this year, I published a short how-to resource guide, The 3 Secrets of Time Management & Eliminating Procrastination that features the science of how and why we procrastinate, how to overcome what is a natural inclination within us, and the various things you can do to increase your writing time.

This blog post represents one of those chapters—the one entitled, “Habits.” For this blog post, I’ve added even more specific advice for writers. So, here goes.

Defining “Habits”

What we do repeatedly becomes habit, and our habits become so ingrained that we perform them without thought. Our lives are composed of daily, weekly, and yearly habits, including our procrastination habits.

Have you ever driven the same route to school or work and wondered how you got there, as you don’t remember driving it? Habit.

Applying this to Writing

When we can use our willpower and tie it to a habit, that’s when success happens. You can easily increase your writing time by purposefully creating a new habit.

For example, I created a daily three-hour writing window and connected it to Zoom, inviting writer friends who were struggling to write every day to join me. This was two years ago. Some writers have come and gone, but there is a core group of us who still participate. Some leave early; others arrive late. Most aren’t here on the weekend, but I’m here almost every day.

I schedule other activities around those three hours, making those three hours a priority. It’s now a habit. Plus, we’re each provided accountability, camaraderie, and are a support group. The thing is, we’re all writing and most of us are publishing.

Forming Habits

Your future is tied to the habits you’re engaged with now, so this is the time to make changes if you want different results later. A different future.

What do you want to manifest for that future?

Be specific. It’s a goal.

To achieve the goal, you’ll want to break the habits that hold you back or are stopping you from reaching that goal.

If all habits are heavily traveled neural pathways (the science I talk about at the beginning of the book) that we travel along without thought, it makes sense to stop traveling the pathways of bad habits and replace them with fresh, alternative paths.

Any rut we’re currently in is the result of a habit. Change the habit that maintains the rut and you’ll be replacing the rut with a new brain path.

What holds us back?

The problem most of us have in wanting to do something new, we think in terms of stopping something first.

That’s where we flounder.

Don’t ever just stop doing something. Replace it with another activity or action. If a replacement isn’t engaged, the original pathway remains, and the old habit will return because our brains seek out patterns and easy paths first. Thus, a replacement blocks the old path.

When changing habits:

• be verbal
• be specific
• make statements in the positive, not the negative

For example, instead of saying I’m going to drink less soda, instead say, I’m going to drink more water.

Tying a Habit to Writing

Be specific about your writing.

Instead of saying, I’m going to write more every day, say, “I’m going to write three pages every day,” or “I’m going to write half an hour every day.”

Why specific? So that you’re better able to track it, be sure to keep a written record of your habit. You can look back and see if you’re fulfilling that desired change. For instance, are you finding you’re writing fifteen minutes every day instead of thirty minutes? If so, then change your expectation and commit to a time you can do.

Change the time to accommodate what you’re doing. Why? Because you’re more likely to repeat that recent change every day. And, you’ll be building on positive success rather than negative disappointment.

When changing a writing habit, focus on what you’re going to do rather than what you’re stopping. This is how the brain’s rut pathway disappears as the new habit pathway replaces it.

Timing is Important

Whatever change you want to make, start doing it today! Not tomorrow. Today. Right now! (After reading this post.)

Don’t let procrastination win today.

Even if you’re writing nothing more than a sentence or two today, or jotting down ideas, it’s a strong start!

And then, make yourself do it every day for a week or a month. Start small, not big. If you find yourself happy and satisfied afterward each day, you’ll want to continue it tomorrow. After a week or a month’s time, re-evaluate your daily goal—your new habit.

Is it working? Can you increase it by just a little?

My recommendation:

I recommend recording the time spent writing after every day’s writing so you can see that you are making progress.

Do this new habit long enough and you’ll have created a new pathway where you’ll soon perform without thought. You’ll want to write or need to write every day because it’s now a strong habit.

Because my Zoom group’s three-hour writing window is a strong writing habit I’ve created, it’s nearly impossible for me not to write every day or perform a writing task. Even when I travel, I take a project with me. It’s habit.

Final Thoughts

Remember these four things…

• Behavior + repeated behavior = habit.
• Positive, purposeful change of behavior + repeated behavior = changed behavior.
• Purposeful to-do list + managed time = a to-do list getting done! Success!
• You will never change your life unless you change a daily habit.

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About Dr. Diana

An award-winning writer in multiple genres across multiple media, Diana is a screenwriter, author, blogger, writing coach, and indie publisher through her production company, Sharpened Pencils Productions.

She recently published her first thriller, Harbor House: Deadly Intentions, a gripping split-time psychological paranormal of two women separated by a century yet bound by peril, legacy, and the haunting secrets of Harbor House Island.

Since then, she’s published The 3 Secrets of Time Management & Eliminating Procrastination as part of her Finding Your Fire series. And just last week, the first guidebook in her Grammar & Writing Rescue series, the I Hate Commas Comma Book: Commas Made Easy Short Read.

Currently, she's writing her next thriller, Buried Trash: A Shelby Hale Thriller.

Featured image purchased from Depositphotos.