Procrastination or burnout?

Is it "laziness" or do you just need a break?

Sometimes you just need to lie down and do nothing for a while…

Procrastination? Or burnout?

This is a questions I think a lot of us need to answer. Not merely in our writing lives, but in our overall life-lives. Because we’re all suffering from that nasty voice that tells us to get off the couch (or out of bed or off TikTok or whatever we’re doing that isn’t the “work”) because supposedly we’re procrastinating.

But…are we?

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Like many of you, I was raised firmly in “hustle” culture. On the one hand, I don’t regret my hustle because it has taken me far in life…(And because I do derive so much pleasure from my job.)

But then there are many moments too where the hustle didn’t take me anywhere except into the doctor’s office. I am embarrassed to admit how many times stress-related ailments have wound me up in a doctor’s office trying to figure out what’s wrong.

And I know I’m not the only one.

Stress kills our body. Literally. The constant pump of cortisol destroys everything inside of us, and I can look back at different photos from my life—moments when I was at my most stressed out—and I can literally SEE the burnout. I look stretched out. My skin is papery. My eyes are hollow.

It’s hard to look at those photos, to be honest, because rarely do I look at them and think, Oh yeah, that was great. I was so happy! I’m so glad I completely wrecked my menstrual cycle for the next five years just to write Windwitch!

😑

And look: as I did say at the beginning, there are many instances of hustle I do not regret. I have literally worked every weekend of my life since becoming an author, and I don’t regret that! I love working on the weekends. That actually brings me joy.

I don’t regret putting in all the effort, time, and money to create and run my first street team in 2015. It is not something I can do now, in my new life as a mom, but that work and stress was absolutely worth it—both from a career standpoint, but more importantly from a human standpoint. Those street team members are amazing! How can I ever regret hustling for them and the Witchlands?

But my life outside of the work isn’t always what I want it to be. And in those instances, burnout tends to creep up…and then hit me like a roundhouse kick to the face.

And look: I know many of us have no choice but to push ourselves to the max of our body’s stress capabilities. It would be a total lie if I told you that I won’t continue to burn midnight oil when my body is on the edge of what it can do. That is unfortunately life and how it works for most of us.

No, what I want to do—and what I want all of us to do—is to recognize when we’re actually procrastinating on a task that needs doing…

And when the procrastination is instead a symptom of our burnout.

For me personally, the distinction looks like this: the thought of dragging myself to the computer seems impossible, and all I really want to do is either 1) game, 2) read, or 3) nap.

I don’t mean just game or read casually, either. I mean, I will feel this deep urge in my bones to spend an entire day on the couch with a controller or a book in my hand. Possibly more than a day. Possibly weeks.

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So here’s a quick story: two nights ago, I got back from a weekend in Houston for Teen Book Con. I had so much fun, but I was badly “extroverted out” by Saturday's end. My empathy well was empty just from being around so many people for so much time without reprieve.¹

Then on Sunday, I was trapped in an airport for most of the day because of flight delays, and by the time I finally got home…I was just beat. A night’s sleep was great, but I was still beat on Monday.

I made myself work, though. Because that usually energizes me—and it did! Until I started vomiting.

Oh yeah, come Monday afternoon, the nausea and misery began. I’ve been having a ton of digestive issues and abdominal pain in the last month—something for which I’ve been in more doctors’ offices and radiology imaging departments than I can count.

Maybe the vomiting was the natural progression of that. Maybe it was just the stomach flu.

Either way, it was a long night and this morning, the first thing I had to do was drag my puking self to the hospital to get an ultrasound of my abdomen.² Now, it’s hours later. I still don’t feel great, and the note in my planner for today says, Draft in the Witchlands.

Lol.

That’s not going to happen. My empathy well is so drained. I haven’t recovered from the weekend of travel yet, much less recovered from all the vomiting and misery. And did I mention Cricket also didn’t nap yesterday? So it was an afternoon of cranky, awful, temper-tantrumy toddler. 😫

I don’t mean to complain—I know so many have it worse. But I also know myself well enough to sense that if I push myself to write today, I will also be pushing myself toward burnout.

The well is empty. It needs to be refilled.

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Now, Old Susan would have viewed my choice to write a newsletter and then read Leviathan Awakes on the couch for a few hours as a failing. Why am I not focusing on THE WORK? YOU ARE LAZY. WORK ON THE LAST WITCHLANDS BOOK!

I would have dragged myself to the keyboard and hammered out a few bad words that I probably would have deleted the next day. Then I’d have felt guilty all day for not writing enough.

Or alternatively, I would have still taken the day off…and then felt guilty throughout my entire day. YOU ARE PROCRASTINATING! BAD, BAD, BAD!

Now I can see the truth: I’m tired. The part of me that creates words—my empathy well—is also the part of me that navigates people and their emotions. I drained that well over the weekend; I drained it more by handling my toddler while vomiting.

And now, pushing myself to write will be fruitless. Worse, pushing myself right now will only drain me even more and take me further away from my goal instead of toward it.

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So I want all of you to start taking note of whether you’re really procrastinating…or if your own well is empty and needs to refill.

Maybe you’ve been working long shifts, and now you feel like you should clean the house instead of veg out in from of the TV.

But…should you? Maybe vegging out is actually what you need to keep your body above the physical line of cortisol overload.

Sure, it’s true that inertia is a powerful force. Our bodies evolved to conserve energy, which means they actively resist getting up off the couch.³ But sometimes we really DO need to save that energy before our bodies are forced to tap into our adrenal glands just to keep us going.

Here’s how I want you to test it: If you sit down to do a task and thirty minutes in you find it’s going well…then cool. Keep going!

If you sit down for that task and it’s not feeling good after thirty minutes of consistent effort, then don’t push yourself. Seriously. Especially if that task is writing a book!

No book is worth it.

And when you do stop, DO NOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT YOUR CHOICE. You are protecting your future productivity and wellbeing by making this decision to “procrastinate” today.

And that’s it. That’s all you have to do. Give it thirty minutes and see how you’re feeling. I bet soon enough, like me, you’ll start to get a sense for when your body craves a break because it needs it…versus when you’re simply letting ye olde inertia win.

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One last thing: I know I said the work gives me energy. It does absolutely. That is why I’m writing this newsletter right now even though my stomach wants me to vomit.

But the work I’m doing at this moment isn't the work of writing a book. The empathy well my characters draw from is totally empty. I can’t feel the story at all. In fact, it feels like I just have no words left.

Which means I have to physically and mentally recover. First by writing this newsletter; then by reading on the couch for a few hours.

And I know the choice to take those child-free hours to “procrastinate” will help me get back to the words sooner and ultimately make me write faster than if I just keep pushing.

You tell me: do you have any tips or tricks for sensing when you’ve entered burnout range and it’s not just procrastination?

1. Have I ever shared that Iseult’s Threadwitchery is a reflection of my own experience? She is so overwhelmed by everyone else’s emotions, she can’t discern her own. That is me, if magnified for…you know. Plot and conflict.

2. I know the hospital’s radiology department so well after the past month, y’all. Multiple X-rays, ultrasounds, a CT scan, and an MRI! What’s left to look at at this point, huh?

3. And lest you think writing doesn’t consume much energy, please consider that our brains are by far the most calorically demanding organs in our bodies! They use 20% of our energy, so if you spend your day thinking really hard…well yeah, that number will go up!