After the last interview with We-Media creators, I had a discussion with 3 interviewees and two PRs working for brands about how to alleviate the procrastination situation of self-publishers.
Interviewee number 2 gave a lot of practical advice. Firstly, she felt that journaling was an effective way to relieve her anxiety. This is because her anxiety and procrastination often stems from not getting anything done herself. When she has not achieved anything at the end of the day.
she feels guilty and uncomfortable. But when she records what she has done each day, she does not think that she has accomplished nothing. In fact, much of the work is inner work, such as communication and making decisions. Being aware of her daily workload, she doesn’t beat herself up as much as she used to.
A PR person adds that oftentimes self-publishers will choose to work at night. This kind of day and night work can have a significant negative impact on a creator’s physical and mental health. Especially if there is a communication problem when the overnight work is over. Self-publishers are extremely prone to breakdowns. Similarly, some videos are the product of overnight work by self-publishers who feel they have paid a huge price to do this and thus have high expectations of it. The lack of high expectations can be even more damaging to a creator’s enthusiasm for creating.
Respondent #1 said that there is not an insurmountable problem with procrastination, and that it is often possible to push yourself and push your limits and still get the job done. When you think about your life and the panic you feel when you don’t have work, it doesn’t feel so hard to work.

Summary:

 I’ve learnt that each of the CREATORS had severe procrastination. Most of them were often anxious, and two of them used anti-anxiety medication.

I created a focus group of the six interviewees, and they all talked about the motivations that trigger procrastination, using procrastination as a starting point. This was summed up in one word, anxiety. This anxiety can be interpreted in 4 ways.

1. Peer competition. Every day there are a lot of highly productive and high quality creators. Because they are all taking business advertising, creator content is competing. The content that has a lot of plays and likes in social media can put mental pressure on the creator.

2. The algorithm of the platform. Tiktok, instagram and other platforms have a video recommendation mechanism that forces the creator to keep producing high quality content. The high expectations of exposure and the reality of the discrepancy can also cause anxiety.

3. Feedback from viewers. Due to the anonymity of online users, some of them often make radical comments or even personal attacks on the creator, thus putting psychological pressure on the creator.

4. Physical health problems. Most creators do not have regular working hours and often work late at night. The sub-healthy state of health makes it easier to feel anxious. Also, because they are self-employed, creators are often questioned by their families.

The focus group then discussed a number of suggestions that all members agreed on, which could be divided into three parts:

1. Be awared that the data on the platform is not under your control. Don’t associate unexpected data feedback with yourself too much,

2. Acknowledge your own internal work, which is often neglected in comparison to the output. Anxiety is often caused form the stress of not making output. At the same time, outsiders may mistakenly think self media is easy work. But the reality is that many decisions and ideas cannot be quantified. Being aware of your real workload can help to reduce the burden of not having an output.

3. Work Life Balance. The competitive nature of the self-publishing industry has led creators to spend almost every moment collecting inspiration and shooting material on the fly. This leads to a lot of time seemingly spent resting, but it is still high-intensity work. It is an important lesson to learn how to take a break from life and work.