Writer’s block is a funny thing. When you don’t have it, you tend to wonder what everyone is so upset about. When you do have it you wonder how you ever managed to write anything.

There are certainly a number of possible causes for the disease. The most likely, if you want my opinion, is that it is caused by lack of confidence. Doubt about the quality of the writing you will manage to tap out, doubt about the quality of the writing you have managed to tap out, and doubt that you will ever manage to tap anything out again.

For me, this seems to be the cause. When I know I have a strong topic to write about, I’m often eager to do the work to put out a solid piece of writing. The issue comes with the fact that this is not so easy as I might like it to be.

Sometimes I’ll worry that what I thought was a great idea yesterday really isn’t so today. Sometimes I’ll worry that I won’t be able to do justice to this great idea. Sometimes I just can’t seem to make a single sentence that seems coherent when read.

I can’t escape the feeling that writer’s block is a natural part of the process. I doubt that you could find a person in the world who hasn’t at one time or another suffered from writer’s block, or it’s good friend procrastination.

For me, and many others as well, procrastination is engendered by fear that what will actually be produced won’t be worth the time that has been spent on it. For that reason, I tend to hold off as long as possible–that way any perceived lack of quality can be justified by an artificial lack of time.

Few things cure either writer’s block or procrastination better than deadlines. The trouble is, they have to be substantial and useful deadline. They have to be deadlines that you as the procrastinator actually are concerned by. An artificial deadline that you create, one that you know to be artificial will never work.

What’s needed is a deadline enforcement system. A service that will hold you to your deadlines. When you fail them you will begin losing things that are valuable to you. Maybe they could begin to drain your savings account. Maybe that could rough you up. Maybe they could just be really disappointed in you.

I don’t know why such a service doesn’t exist. Perhaps I’ll make it.The trouble is I have to create it. Creating an anti-procrastination service without an anti-procrastination service? This may be the most difficult test a procrastinator could ever undertake.