Been meaning to blog about this, but kept putting it off. This article by Loizos Heracleous and David Robson cites studies claiming procrastination can benefit creativity.
The authors quote Agatha Christie as saying she often thought of story ideas while bathing. I suspect many writers have experienced a similar phenomenon. You’re writing and get stuck. You take a break and turn to some dull activity, such as mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, showering, etc., and Bang! The solution comes to mind. Often you don’t even realize you were thinking about it.
The article discusses several studies that bear this out. Researchers found that taking a break from a creative task and performing a different, humdrum task allowed participants to return to the creative task and perform better. Oddly, those that rested instead of working on a humdrum task did not do as well.
Odd that the human mind works this way. I’ve blogged before about how weird that is. You could spend time puzzling about it or analyzing this brain quirk, but perhaps your time’s better spent accepting it and using it to your advantage. When the words won’t spill out, back away and pursue some mundane chore for a while.
However, I urge you not to draw the wrong conclusion from this discussion. You’re thinking, “Well, if procrastination works that well, I’ll spend years putting off writing and end up a best-selling author.”
Sorry. It doesn’t work that way. In fact, I wish the article hadn’t use the term ‘procrastinate’ at all. The word means to postpone, to delay, like when you have homework due and you watch YouTube videos instead.
We’re talking about something different here. When you get stuck while writing and choose to do gardening instead, you’re not really postponing anything. You’re still writing in the sense that your brain is thinking of creative solutions.
To paraphrase the math genius, Yogi Berra—writing is 90% mental; the other half is physical. Your body may have walked away from the keyboard, but your brain still writes.
Put another way, if you aim to be a prolific writer, you must write a lot. But not all writing time involves stringing words together. An observer might think you’re washing dishes, but you’re really stringing ideas together. Just tell that observer you’re not procrastinating, you’re writing in your mind, just like—
Poseidon’s Scribe
