englishmajorhumor reblogged
Comic Mike Birbiglia on how he stopped procrastinating when he was writing the screenplay for his new movie, Don’t Think Twice:
“I was procrastinating writing the movie. I had the movie in my head, but I wasn’t writing it. But I noticed this trend in my life which was that I was showing up to lunch meetings or business meetings, but I wasn’t showing up to meet myself. So I wrote a note next to my bed — this is so corny — but I wrote “Mike! You have an appointment at Café Pedlar at 7 a.m. with your mind!” It’s so corny, and I would show up! I never didn’t show up and I wrote this movie [in] spurts of essentially three hours, like I’d write from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. and the reason why I would do that is because I was essentially barely awake. Because I feel like that moment, at 7 to 10 a.m., you’re not afraid of the world yet.”
More from today’s Fresh Air interview with Birbiglia:
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images
Here’s some insightful advice. I’ll often tell people asking me advice for how to get stuff done to set appointments for themselves, but the 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. advice really resonates with me, since my fear often gets in my way.