The Art of Procrastination - Top 10 List

Oh yes, procrastination is a good thing.
It gets all the boring stuff done.

Sometimes you wake up early, full of energy, you arrive in your atelier and realize you don't want to sculpt/paint/sew/knit/be creative.

Now, that happens quite often, but fear not, my brave little artisans, fear not.
Because in such cases you have a joker : do all the boring stuff that is long overdue.
Here the top 10 list of things to do if you do not want to work, but still want to be productive.


1. Cleaning your Atelier
Most creative people are not tidy when it comes to their working area.
Chaos is good because it helps to create (only fellow artists can understand that sentence I think).
But sometimes it's good to clean everything, sort out broken stuff and remove all the empty cups of coffee/tea/hot chocolate and the remains of cookies.

2.  Inventory 

Pff... Checking your inventory... Annoying!
Now, that is perfect when you don't want to work, because it makes you feel good to see all the stuff you still have on stock.
And so you can check what needs to be listed online... which brings us toooo...

3. Shooting Star

Photographing all the items that need to be photographed since weeks/months/years (yes years).
Perfect way of avoiding work, while still being extremely useful.
Or you can post-edit the pictures that wait on your computer.
Once you have the pictures, you can...

4. List Stuff

Oh yes, listing items online is booooring as hell. So another wonderful task when you're procrastinating. :)
Once the stuff is listed, yes, what's coming now??

5. Social Networking

Tell everyone!
Be it FB, twitter, Flickr, deviantArt or ahem the rest. That is boring too when you're in full swing to create new items. But when you feel like doing nothing? Perfect!
And marketing is always good  :)
6. Prepare your Packaging

Boxes to stamp or to decorate? Business cards to make? Tiny cards to make?
Gift paper to pre-cut? I'm sure there's a lot to deal here too. I know there always is here.

7. Buy Supplies

:) not a boring task at all. Buying supplies is fun! Just be careful not to spent everything on supplies ;)

8. Blogging

Maybe you love to blog, so this won't be an issue, but most artisans prefer to create, than to talk about how and what they create. So blogging is somewhat a painful (but necessarily) activity to yell to the world that you exist and to show what you're up to.
(like me right now)

9. Read blogs/interesting websites

Once you've done all the boring stuff, use your time to get creative again.
Staying up to date with what's happening in the creative world is helpful to get you back on track and to motivate you.

10. Deal with your Home

If after all this you still don't feel the urge to create things, attack your home: laundry, cooking, cleaning, ... should get sufficiently on your nerves to make you wish to go back to your atelier :)

Hope that'll cheer you up :)
And what do you do when you don't feel like working?