I, like every single writer I know, am a horrible procrastinator. Here, in no particular order, are the ways in which I procrastinate:

• I scroll through Instagram
• I scroll through Facebook
• I scroll through Twitter
• I scroll through Pinterest
• I check the Cheat Sheet on The Daily Beast
• I try to do a loose side braid
• I try to do a perfect top knot
• I eat a handful of almonds/cashews/walnuts/grapes/snap peas/M&Ms
• I change the Pandora station
• I change my outfit
• I change my accessories
• I change the spot where I’m sitting
• I re-organize my closet
• I re-organize my refrigerator
• I re-organize the placement of tchotchkes around my apartment
• I read things I’ve written that I like
• I shop online but don’t ultimately buy because I don’t deserve anything, because I can’t get my damn work done!

That feels like a good place to stop. No I will never admit what percentage of the real list that portion represents. And yet, I am still what some people refer to as a prolific writer. I write a lot, in a variety of genres, and I almost always get my work done on time. It’s just that I frequently find myself producing that massive amount of work under extreme time pressure because I’ve backed myself into a corner.

I used to think this exercise in insanity was the psychological result of my body and mind thriving on the pressure. I always write under pressure, and I produce good writing ergo I only produce good writing under pressure; the procrastinating is helping! Then I read this article from The Atlantic that made me really, really uncomfortable.

Here are the highlights and my many reactions:

“Over the years, I developed a theory about why writers are such procrastinators: We were too good in English class. This sounds crazy, but hear me out…It isn’t that they never failed, but at a very early age, they didn’t have to fail much; their natural talents kept them at the head of the class.”

[Yeah? So?]

“This teaches a very bad, very false lesson: that success in work mostly depends on natural talent.”

[Wait. It doesn’t?]

“If you’ve spent most of your life cruising ahead on natural ability, doing what came easily and quickly, every word you write becomes a test of just how much ability you have, every article a referendum on how good a writer you are. As long as you have not written that article, that speech, that novel, it could still be good. Before you take to the keys, you are Proust and Oscar Wilde and George Orwell all rolled up into one delicious package.”

[So. Many. Feelings.]

“…the people who dislike challenges think that talent is a fixed thing that you’re either born with or not. The people who relish them think that it’s something you can nourish by doing stuff you’re not good at.”

[I hate this article]

“…they may even engage in what psychologists call “self-handicapping”: deliberately doing things that will hamper their performance in order to give themselves an excuse for not doing well.”

[Or in other words, procrastinating…]

“Writers who don’t produce copy—or leave it so long that they couldn’t possibly produce something good—are giving themselves the perfect excuse for not succeeding.”

[Stomach drop]

Alright Megan McArdle, you seem to have a direct window into the secret core of my being, so I’m listening. What’s the solution?

“Embracing Hard Work”

That’s not a sentence in this article, it’s an entire heading of the final section. There’s more to it, so I encourage you to read the whole piece, after your work for the day is done. I’d explain it to you but I’m already behind in my own work for the day, and I really want to treat myself to the puppy toys currently sitting in my Amazon.com cart, so I’m afraid I have to go.