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The Steve Laube Agency

The Steve Laube Agency

Helping to Change the World Word by Word

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Home » Inspiration » Page 3

Inspiration

Stop Procrastinating—Right Now!

By Bob Hostetleron July 13, 2022
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In my last post on this amazing blog (Steve Laube requires me to say that at regular intervals), I opined about seven consequences of procrastination. You may not have gotten around to reading it yet, but I promised in that post to follow up with some helpful tips or techniques for preventing procrastination. So, without further ado or delay, here are some ideas:

  1. Pray.

Of course, right? But seriously, pray about your procrastination. Pray for deliverance from procrastination. Pray for those who might be affected if you procrastinate. And so on.

  1. Make a list.

Several of the comments on my previous post (“I’ve Put Off Writing This Blog Post Long Enough”) mentioned the value of making to-do lists and keeping them handy. (Thanks, Deb Gorman and Andrew Budek-Schmeisser.) I use a bullet journal to list my daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual goals. (Yes, I am OCD; wanna make something of it?)

  1. Carry it over.

When you don’t accomplish something on your daily to-do list, copy it to the next day. And then the next. And the next. This is a good reason not to use a digital to-do app that does this for you, because the repetition and annoyance of repeatedly writing that same task can spur you to get it done, so you don’t have to keep writing it.

  1. Ask why.

Commenting on my previous post, Susan Brehmer said, “I review items left dangling on my to-do list and consider why I haven’t completed them yet. That often leads to a simple step to get started.”

  1. Exercise your faith.

Envision what it will be like when you complete the tasks you’ve been procrastinating. A deep sigh of relief? A sense of accomplishment? A break from the space it’s been taking up in your head? Renewed self-respect? You might go so far as to verbalize this: “When I finish ______, I’ll experience ____.”

  1. Break it down.

Are you procrastinating because the task ahead is intimidating? Too big? Too hard? Break it down into incremental steps, and place those steps in your schedule or to-do list. Remember, according to the old joke, that’s how you eat an elephant: “one bite at a time.”

  1. Bundle tasks.

Sarah Hamaker posted this comment on my previous blog post: “Bundling my least preferred tasks (like social media and marketing!) in blocks of time on a weekly or monthly calendar also allows me to both forget about those tasks and do them in a single block of time.” Pairing tasks you tend to procrastinate with those you enjoy (for instance, enlisting a friend to partner with in some of your least favorite tasks) can turn procrastination into anticrastination. (So sorry.)

  1. Schedule “sprints.”

Schedule a time and place for short bursts of focused attention on your most-pressing and/or most-often-procrastinated tasks. It’s easy to put off something when you have “all day” or “all week” to accomplish it; that can feel like a marathon. But if you tell yourself that you’re going to “sprint” for fifteen or thirty minutes in order to get Task A done, you might actually do it.

  1. Shut the door.

Never in history have we had more ways to allow ourselves to be distracted from the things we ought to do: phone calls, emails, text messages, Facebook, doorbells, YouTube, YouNameIt. But there are also ways to counter those things, by putting your phone on “Do Not Disturb” or “Airplane Mode,” for example. So take that thing you’ve been putting off, shut the door, silence everything, and don’t come out until the thing is done.

  1. Build in rewards.

If you’re as OCD as I am, checking off task after task (and thus moving them out of my limited brain space) is its own reward. If you’re not, promise yourself a commensurate reward for getting it done. A donut, perhaps. Okay, so it doesn’t have to be donuts. It could be a nap. A walk. A purchase. Even a sticker, just like in first grade.

I’m so glad to get this post written, I can’t even begin to describe it. So I won’t. Instead, I’ll check it off as “done” and head to the donut place.

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Category: Career, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Count More Than Words

By Bob Hostetleron June 9, 2022
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Writers count words. That probably comes as no surprise to the readers of this blog, but still. Those who write for publication count words. It comes with the territory, as Professor Harold Hill might say (or sing). Writers-for-publication know that published articles, stories, and books in certain genres must meet certain word counts. For example, a two-page spread in a magazine is typically …

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Category: Inspiration, The Writing Life

The Bronze Mirror

By Tamela Hancock Murrayon June 8, 2022
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I’m reading the HCSB Study Bible for Women with notes from Dorothy Kelley Patterson and Rhonda Harrington Kelley. The notes on Exodus 38:8 discuss how women donated bronze mirrors to build Temple basins for the priests. I thought, Bronze. That means they never saw themselves as we see ourselves. They only saw themselves through a yellow haze. I realize the Bible speaks of mirrors more than …

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Category: Craft, Inspiration

A Writer’s Prayer: Words and Language

By Bob Hostetleron June 1, 2022
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Thank you, God, for words and language,for the mental, tactile, and often emotional pleasure of words on paper. Thank you for the joy of a well-turned phrase,the satisfaction of just the right word, the beauty of an artful description, or finely tuned sentence. Thank you for the honor of reflecting your image (2 Corinthians 3:18)in thinking and wording things into being (John 1:1), bringing dead …

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Category: Inspiration

Publishing in Generalities

By Dan Balowon May 25, 2022
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While agents and publishers accept book proposals because they contain a number of specific things they like, most book proposals are turned down because of a general reason. For example, refer to the “Who We Are,” section of this website. Each agent has a set of filters we use to focus our efforts. The filters reflect our strengths and/or personal preferences. Outside of these, we decline. …

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Category: Book Proposals, Career, Get Published, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Why I Read

By Bob Hostetleron April 28, 2022
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Writers write for many reasons. Therapy. Self-realization. Compulsion. Etc. But professional writers, those who are published with regularity, find an intersection between why they write and why their readers read. Sure, sometimes that intersection is at the corner of “I’m brilliant” and “Everyone loves everything I write.” But more often, we start not with our own need to express ourselves but …

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Category: Encouragement, Inspiration, Personal

A 40+ Day Musical Experience

By Steve Laubeon April 18, 2022
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I’ve been making an annual musical journey during the pre-Easter Lenten season. I wrote about a couple of those before (here and here). I thought it might be fun to reveal this year’s version. Since mid-February, the only music I’ve listened to in the car or while on a plane has been the collected works of Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). While most of us are familiar with his …

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Category: Inspiration, Personal

Be Proactively Lazy

By Bob Hostetleron April 7, 2022
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In James Clear’s excellent, bestselling book Atomic Habits, he writes about a man who set up a number of systems and habits that impressed others, who commented on his energy and hard work in getting so much done. He shrugged off the compliments, however, saying something like, “I’m actually not that hard-working; I’m just proactively lazy.” I love it. I think “proactive laziness” is a good modus …

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Category: Career, Encouragement, Inspiration, The Writing Life

Stormy Writing

By Dan Balowon March 31, 2022
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It is safe to say we all tend to learn and grow more spiritually from difficulty than from the good times. Both reveal God’s presence in our lives, but our hard heads and hearts seem to need a good bit of humbling before we “get it.” Most people write more powerfully under duress. A couple months ago, while reading a manuscript of a long-time acquaintance, the tone surprised me a bit. I wondered …

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Category: Encouragement, Inspiration

Fearful Writing

By Dan Balowon March 23, 2022
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It is important for Christian writers to be bold, not worrying so much about who might be offended by the gospel or who might take biblical truth the wrong way. Despite society being fragile these days with so many people triggered by the littlest thing, this situation shouldn’t stop us from proclaiming God’s truth. We all need to be more fearless in the way we live and communicate. After all, as …

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Category: Career, Christian, Inspiration
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