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Jerry Seinfeld to Writers: “No Slack For You” Even on Festivus!
We like to look for one primary secret to the success of the superstars of the world, even though almost always a combination of factors, people, and circumstances were involved. It remains instructive though when a highly successful professional freely offers the big reveal on how they got to the top. As reported in Lifehacker,…
Read MoreFinals Week to Netflix (Procrastination Illustrated)
Does Dopamine Create Motivation?
Scientists now believe it does. “It was believed that dopamine regulated pleasure and reward and that we release it when we obtain something that satisfies us, but in fact the latest scientific evidence shows that this neurotransmitter acts before that, it actually encourages us to act. In other words, dopamine is released in…
Read MoreFranz Kafka’s Writer’s Block
Mason Currey, author of Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, writes about three procrastinating writers, Edgar Allen Poe, William James, and Franz Kafka: “In 1908, Kafka landed a position at the Workers’ Accident Insurance Institute in Prague, where he was fortunate to be on the coveted “single shift” system, which meant office hours from 8 or…
Read MoreWriter’s Block: Erykah Badu Gets It Right
Singer Erikah Badu’s fantastic advice re writer’s block: “Don’t worry. When U have NO content to express the emotion U are feeling. It’s not writer’s block. It’s just downloading time.” ht Sheldon Levine, Sysomos Here’s another singer who gets it.
Read MoreWriter’s Block is Universal
Sheldon Levine at Sysomos used his company’s social media analytics platform to see how often people mention writer’s block online, and who is mentioning it. He got some interesting results, including: Of the 100 days I looked at, 54.7% of all the social mentions of writers block that I found came from the United States.…
Read MoreGuest Post: Tips for Thesis Writers: How to Get to the First Draft
Terrific advice for all writers from Ph.D. student Nolanne Chang, reprinted with kind permission. Here’s her blog. She sounds very empowered as she works to create a context that supports her writing productivity! – Hillary Previously in my posts I’ve outlined my feelings on the general structure of writing a science thesis, and what the…
Read MoreScrivener Word Processor 50% Off at Amazon
Scrivener is an excellent word processor for long-form writing in particular. It was designed from the ground up with writing efficiency in mind, and harkens back to the golden age of word processing when we had speedy and versatile tools like Wordstar, WordPerfect, Textra (my favorite!), etc. It’s currently 50% off at Amazon – $20.…
Read MoreWhy Shouldn’t You Strive for Happiness Late in Life?
My dad was an intelligent, creative, and incredibly thwarted guy who was miserable most of his life. I suggested a few times that he get therapy, and the answer was always, “What do you think I am? Nuts?” And so he never got happier. So I’m really happy to read that more elderly people are…
Read MoreArtist Sol LeWitt’s Productivity Advice: Create More by Focusing on the Work Itself
This short movie contains many F-bombs but offers valid productivity advice: The movie’s text is an F-bombed version of a letter from Sol LeWitt to Eva Hesse, who struggled with self-doubt: Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping,…Stop it and just DO!……
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