I'm My Own Worst Boss

 

Everyone told me to treat writing like a job.  I'd need to show up and actually work, as I would for any other employer.  There should be goals and deadlines.  A plan.  In other words, I need to be productive.  It’s all very true.  But…

 

I have quickly found, I’m my own worst boss.

 

Ironically, I’m a manager at my day job – you know, the one that actually pays the bills.  I have eleven people who report directly to me and I hold a great deal of inter-departmental responsibility on top of that.  You’d think I’d be a better boss to myself when it comes to writing.  Not so much.

 

If you’ve ever worked for someone else, then you know when you have a bad boss your job can go downhill pretty damn quick.  This applies when you’re self-employed, too.  Part-time, Full-time, it doesn’t matter.  Bad leadership is bad business, period.

 

 

The Good Boss

 

We recently held a Leadership in-service at work and they discussed topics such as, What qualities make up a good boss? 

 

• The top answer is leading by example – pretty hard to do when your “example” is what you’re trying to improve.  But there are other authors out there who are emulation worthy.

 

• Fairness was also somewhere near the top.  And I don’t think fairness means a six hour marathon of Arrow on Netflix as a reward for surviving the Monday through Friday routine.  So I began thinking, it’s really not fair to the characters when their author is slacking off, is it?

 

• Other qualities that I can recall were recognition, organization, and conflict resolution (which isn’t that just handy).  You get the drift; all of these are applicable to writing as well.

 

So this is part of the new mindset I’ve been trying to keep when it comes to writing.  To be a better boss to myself.

 

 

Excuses

 

Maybe you’re lucky enough to not have a certain affliction, but apparently I’ve got it bad.  It’s called procrastination.  And it’s usually followed by the excuse “I don’t have time.”  Yes, I do.  And if you’ve said this – you probably do, too.  Not probably – there’s time.  But like anything else it doesn’t magically jump up and identify itself.  So the challenge is to start being honest. 

 

“I don’t have time because I watched six hours of Arrow.”

 

“I don’t have time because I spent an hour scrolling through my newsfeed on Facebook.”

 

“I don’t have time because instead of writing, I decided it was a good time to google HTML for blogger.”

 

All true stories, by the way.  And I did learn a lot about HTML – love Google.  LOL.  But it’s not getting the story written and that’s the bottom line. 

 

 

What about you?  Suffer from procrastination, or find yourself without time like me?