I've been writing "professionally" for 11 years and I still spend way too much time moving the commas around and rewording sentences and getting stuck in research mode! So funny how these things trip us up and hold us back, but loved your suggestions for overcoming them.
Personally, I go for a walk or a bike ride whenever I find myself falling too much into the perfectionism traps, or ill move to writing on my phone or go to the couch instead of the desk. I also leave reworking the one sentence of an article that's bugging me until the very end, and then I usually can come back with fresh eyes and fix it no worries. Once I've got my first draft down, it always feels easier to edit than it does to start again with the blank page. Then I either reach a point of "good enough" or sometimes get the holy grail of "daaaamn this is good!", but that's a rarity 😂
so interesting to hear this perspective! im trying to integrate the "just close the doc and walk away" attitude into my writing life (and other parts of my life too, let's be honest). but i find that it's harder to do with writing long-form projects (diss, novel, etc) is harder bc the amount of times i have to touch the same project is so high, which means having to confront my "bad work" more, and things like weird phrasings or knowledge gaps take longer to fix themselves. probably a sign that i need to break things down into smaller bits or something? it's all about that dopamine of checking things off babyyyyy
I've been writing "professionally" for 11 years and I still spend way too much time moving the commas around and rewording sentences and getting stuck in research mode! So funny how these things trip us up and hold us back, but loved your suggestions for overcoming them.
Personally, I go for a walk or a bike ride whenever I find myself falling too much into the perfectionism traps, or ill move to writing on my phone or go to the couch instead of the desk. I also leave reworking the one sentence of an article that's bugging me until the very end, and then I usually can come back with fresh eyes and fix it no worries. Once I've got my first draft down, it always feels easier to edit than it does to start again with the blank page. Then I either reach a point of "good enough" or sometimes get the holy grail of "daaaamn this is good!", but that's a rarity 😂
so interesting to hear this perspective! im trying to integrate the "just close the doc and walk away" attitude into my writing life (and other parts of my life too, let's be honest). but i find that it's harder to do with writing long-form projects (diss, novel, etc) is harder bc the amount of times i have to touch the same project is so high, which means having to confront my "bad work" more, and things like weird phrasings or knowledge gaps take longer to fix themselves. probably a sign that i need to break things down into smaller bits or something? it's all about that dopamine of checking things off babyyyyy