101 Ways to Procrastinate

1. Check email
2. Get a drink
3. Check facebook
4. Reread the last section
5. Edit something
6. Research something
7. Open another document
8. Make a snack
9. Pay a bill
10. Take a nap
11. Reread from the beginning to “make sure it flows and has proper continuity.”
12. Plan your writing.
13. Plot out the book in greater detail
14. Watch a movie to “inspire you.”
15. Blog  😉
16. Write down the great idea you just got before you forget it
17. Write the first chapter of that book while you’re excited about it.
18. Scrub the bathroom
19. Check email– again
20. Play solitaire to stimulate your mind
21. Plan menus
22. Schedule a dental cleaning
23. Remember that you wear dentures and cancel the cleaning
24. Write a paragraph
25. Erase it
26. Read a book on overcoming procrastination
27. Search Istockphoto.com for the perfect cover photo
28. Design a mock up to see if it works
29. Trim your daughter’s hair– you know, that hair that you’ve been saying no to for weeks but now you’ll do because it means you don’t have to be responsible.
30. Balance the checkbook
31. Realize you don’t have a checkbook register anymore and wonder what it was you just balanced.
32. Send a birthday card– for someone you haven’t sent one to in years.
33. Read a story to your child/grandchild.
34. Oil hinges
35. Clean your monitor
36. Blow out your keyboard
37. Exercise to get the juices flowing
38. Take a nap to recuperate from the exercise
39. Pick your nose
40. Trim your fingernails
41. Clip your toenails
42. Make a color coded schedule with time blogs FOR procrastination so you can do it later.
43. Turn on messenger so you have an excuse.
44. Change your facebook profile picture
45. Defragment your disk
46. Download a trial for a writing program
47. Check message boards to see if anyone needs you immediately.
48. Update the website.
49. Start a new budget
50. Make cookies
51. “doorbell the neighbor”
52. Twiddle thumbs.
53. Put chicken chests into the sink to defrost
54. Clean your fingernails
55. Moisturize your hands
56. Scold the kids for running in the house.
57. Ask if they were born in a barn
58. Realize that there’s nothing wrong with being born in a barn– Jesus was.
59. Start a novel about the birth of Jesus.
60. Decide you don’t like historical novels and delete it.
61. Check your email again.
62. Click 5 dozen MyPoints emails to get 300 MyPoints.
63. Decide you need new business cards
64. Design new business cards
65. Rearrange the living room
66. Clean off your desk
67. Delete the trial programs from your computer
68. Clean out your ears
69. Design the perfect workout schedule
70. Delete the schedule
71. Eat hot cookies
72. Answer the phone.
73. Chat with the telemarketer
74. Convince them to look at your books online
75. Start an online serial story
76. Make a blog to post it on
77. Delete the blog because you decided it would be a great story
78. Ask your editor fifty questions, one or two per email
79. See a long line of emails in your inbox.
80. Clean out your inbox.
81. Go Christmas shopping online– yes, in February.
82. Plan a new wardrobe
83. Make soup for a shut in
84. Take soup to shut in
85. Put gas in the car– yes, even if it was 7/8 full from yesterday’s procrastination attempt.
86. Organize photos for scrapbooks
87. Remember you hate scrapbooking and put it away
88. Look up a few dozen words in the thesaurus
89. Change the wax in the scentsy warmer
90. Dust the shelf the scentsy warmer is on
91. Dust the rest of the shelves
92. Have an asthma attack
93. Close your eyes and dream out the next scene
94. Take notes
95. Consider a nap but two in one afternoon is too much
96. Fall asleep at the keyboard
97. Look up the meaning of pulchritude just to be sure you used it right five chapters back
98. Decide that pulchritude sounds revolting instead of exquisite and decide to use exquisiteness instead.
99. Answer the door
100. Tell the pizza guy that he’s got the wrong house– dad burn it
101. Read the newspaper– you know that thing you haven’t read in six years.

Then, once you’ve exhausted every procrastination device you can imagine and you really are interested in writing… your document is open and the juices are flowing, your words are flying across the page– realize that it’s time to get up and make dinner.