This weekend I charged myself with completing writing something. This project has needed to be done for a while now, but I have kept putting it off. Finally, I made a commitment to it being in someone’s inbox by the time they started work Saturday morning.

It was Thursday morning when I made this commitment, knowing that I had two very full days ahead of me and very little time in which to accomplish it. Friday night would be the only unscheduled time I had to write it.

Friday evening I retired to my office and pulled out the document to work on. I read over my previous work on it and decided that it needed a fresh start.

I sat in front of my computer and stared at the screen for a few minutes before I walked away. It was in the moment right before I left my office when I realized when I have really wanted to complete a piece of writing, I go to bed relatively early and wake up in the wee hours of the morning.

I followed that prescription Friday night. I crawled into bed between 9:30 and 10:00 PM and set my alarm for 3:00 AM. I know…I usually find that to be a tortuous hour to wake, but when I absolutely have to write, 3:00 or 4:00 AM is when it gets started. I drifted off to sleep thinking that when I awoke, I would get straight to writing and I’d be able to send it off just before 8:00 AM.

At 3:00 AM I decided to reset the alarm for 4:00.

I finally get to the computer sometime around 4:20. I locate the document and start typing away. It is in those morning hours that the words flowed through me and seem to magically appear on the page. Before I knew it, I was done. It was about 5:45.

I did a quick review for typos and minor changes, not too concerned if I would have to do anything extensive since I knew that I was sending it out for a critique and would get revision suggestions in the afternoon.

I took a fresh look at it around 10:00 and did very slight tweaking. I realized that the editing needed on this piece was minimal.

I reflected upon past morning writings and noticed a few things. I started doing this type of writing in college, when I would have a paper, short story or any other piece of writing due. I would beat myself up about it, yelling at myself about procrastination.

As I got older, I still did this when I had something that I felt was really important to write. My stomach would get all tied up in knots as the deadline got closer. Then, I would again admonish myself for procrastination and not getting it done sooner.

These two things didn’t need any reflection. I know these two things because they run through my head any time I have committed to writing something.

The next few thoughts that came out of this reflection have just changed my life forever.

I realized today that what I’ve been doing all these years has not been procrastination. It has been a formula for my writing success.

When I feel compelled to write, like now, it can be any time of day and there are a few factors that are always similar like where I like to write, the instruments I use to write with, etc.

When I have to write, it is entirely different. Choosing to deliberately write takes discipline. Ask any writer, we all have a routine that we follow. I just never recognized mine until today.

Daily disciplines allow you to focus on the task at hand. It is just something that you do that eventually becomes automatic. You will often fall into a zone while doing it. My best deliberate writing, needing the least amount of editing is the outcome of a very specific discipline.

What I once thought was procrastination and being driven to work under the wire, I now know is my way of setting a very strong intention, focusing on the outcome and getting my conscious mind out of the way so that my subconscious mind can be open to delivering just what I need.

I know this formula now, and can use it with any project that I want to flow effortlessly through, be it writing or anything else.

I know that this formula will work for others as well – we just need to plug in the routine that is specific to them. For me it is sleeping on it and getting up and doing it. For someone else it might be brainstorming, going to play a game of golf and coming back to sort the brainstorming into a cohesive project plan they are inspired to follow.

The possibilities are as endless as the people who want to tap into how to move from procrastination to productivity in their lives.