Excuses have a bad reputation. They are often interpreted as contrived half-lies meant to allow the excuse-maker to shirk responsibility or weasel out of obligations and expectations. Sometimes this is true.

Excuses can also be valid signals of dysfunction or genuine difficulty, indicating that you don’t yet have the right tools or time or skills or knowledge to proceed. With this interpretation, they can be essential catalysts to our creative work and growth.

For example, I’ve had a note on my to-do list for a few weeks now reminding me to assemble a set of photographs for another article I’m working on, but I haven’t done it yet. Why? Whenever I noticed it on the list, I’d develop a vague sense of unease: that the task was overwhelming, or might take longer than I had time for at the moment, or that maybe it wasn’t that important anyway. I would start to tidy up my desk instead, or go make tea and then decide that I should roast some squash for dinner, or that maybe the time would be better spent re-organizing a bookshelf or two.

What are these excuses telling me? If my intention is to organize a set of photos, why is my brain leading me towards other activities? Why did I spend the last few hours cleaning up my desk and typing up notes from unrelated projects when I had set out to organize those photos? What are the real reasons for my reluctance?

Working backward through my internal dialogue, I start to understand several sources of my discomfort:

• I’m not sure which of two possible articles I’d like to pair with these photos. My lack of clarity on the writing side makes me unsure which photos I should select. There are hundreds of photos related to this project, so without clarity, it becomes an overwhelming task.
• Because of that fuzziness, I’m also not sure which set of keywords to use to classify the photos, or where to file them. Should I create a new set of keywords altogether, or just use what I already have? (This is related to the naming problem I wrote about earlier.)
• Will these images be used in a gallery, which means I could select ten or so photos that together represent the idea, or do I need a single representative image?

Underneath the excuses, I discovered a series of questions that I hadn’t answered because I wasn’t consciously aware of them. Once I paid direct attention to the excuses, and tracked them to their origin, I was able to make the decisions I needed to make to clarify the project, and start sorting the photos.

Exercise

• Identify a project you have been wanting to work on for a while, but have avoided for some undetermined reason.
• Keep a piece of paper or a notebook in your work area for that project.
• Every time you think about working on it — but don’t — write down the reason or excuse. The first one that pops into your mind. Try not to punish yourself over it or go on a guilt trip. You are gathering information, not pressing charges.
• After a week or so, or however long it takes to start finding that your latest excuse is already on the list, set aside some time to think about each excuse on your list in detail. What is the source? Do not slip into trying to work on your project: this is work about your project.
• For each excuse, look for underlying problems. Line by line, go through everything that is possibly getting in your way. You may not be able to resolve each one, but you can probably think of some workarounds.
• After doing this, set a schedule for working on the project, and try to adopt the attitude: “No excuses. I’m going to work on this.”

No matter how well you analyze and develop workarounds for your excuses, new sources of friction will appear. It’s a continuous process. Repeat as necessary.

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