Procrastination Jumpstarts Creativity

Promoting his new book Pontoon: A Novel of Lake Wobegon in a recent interview, humorist Garrison Keillor said, “The Internet and e-mail are the greatest gifts to us procrastinators and probably they help to prevent [writing] a million dreadful books a year. People get an urge to write, say, a memoir of their early years in the real estate business and then they Google ‘real estate’ and that leads them to ‘reality’ and then to Wittgenstein [a 20th century philosopher] and pretty soon it’s time for dinner. I am all in favor of this.”

I think Keillor must be a pusher for YouTube addicts like me, because, in effect, he said, “Faye, go on the Internet, type in Pearl Jam on YouTube.com, and bring up a video. It’s all right. One time won’t hurt you.”

I believed him, but I should have known better. It’s 7 weeks later, and I’ve watched not only one Pearl Jam video but also 17 years worth of videos. And all I now think about is “scoring” my next video. Procrastinators, don’t trust Keillor. He claims to be one of us, but he’s not: He’s too productive a writer to be an addict.

Seriously though, I jumpstarted a dormant aspect of my creativity—the raw, youthful, and urgent need to express myself—by watching these videos. I now combine adult-like focus with youth-like enthusiasm to produce more writing than ever before.

Who knew procrastination could be this productive?

Faye Quam Heimerl, © 2009

Faye Quam Heimerl of Quam Editorial won’t procrastinate when she’s helping you express yourself with youth-like enthusiasm. Contact Faye at Faye@QuamEditorial.com or call 303.505.3530.