Productivity
Why “Positive Procrastination” is (Mostly) a Scam
Every week, it seems, someone publishes an article about how procrastination can be good for you. This week it’s The New York Times. I am all about using whatever productivity techniques work for you. But in my experience pro-procrastination techniques work for very few people, and are actually more likely to undermine your productivity than…
Read MoreHow John Scalzi Meets His Deadlines
This week, bestselling author John Scalzi blogged about how he’s going to meet his 2016 deadlines: “For me, the major problem is not writer’s block or plot issues or anything structural involving the novel; I generally don’t have problems with those once I start, and with this new novel, thankfully, I didn’t have any real…
Read MoreHow to Get Out of a Slump
I got a lovely note from a reader that included this passage (reprinted with kind permission): “For the last one and a half week I have been in kind of in a slump, disappointed after a school assignment I had trouble finishing. I thought I finally had my writing problem under control, but ended up…
Read MoreThe Problem With Daily Word Counts
This list of the daily word counts of famous authors has been making the rounds. The top producers, by far, are the late thriller writer Michael “Jurassic Park” Crichton and the late British historical novelist R. F. Delderfield, who both apparently wrote 10,000 words a day. Then we’ve got one 6,000-word-a-day chap (thriller writer John Creasy), a…
Read MoreLively Interview on Writing Productivity and Overcoming Perfectionism (30 mins)
Check out this fun 30-minute interview I did on boosting writing productivity and overcoming perfectionism. The interviewers were the lively and knowledgeable Dr. Bob Wright and Christine Wright of StressFreeNow:
Read MoreProductivity Tips from Alex the Parrot
I just finished reading Irene Pepperberg’s wonderful book Alex & Me, about her work and relationship with Alex, the African Grey parrot who became internationally renowned for his cognitive and communications skills, including being able to hold simple conversations, spell simple words, and do simple math. Turns out he could procrastinate, too. One problem Pepperberg…
Read MoreExclusive! John Scalzi’s Time Management and Career Tips
Last week, the publishing world was abuzz with the news that bestselling science fiction author John Scalzi signed a movie-star-like $3.4 million publishing deal for 10 books. Scalzi is someone I admire enormously, not just for his writing and career success, but because he’s a genuinely nice guy, both offline (I’ve seen him at science fiction conventions)…
Read MoreDon’t Let Unintended/Unwanted Consequences Hold Back Your Projects
Reblogged from the Thesis Whisperer. The anonymous author of this piece, originally entitled “What’s it like to Finish?”, does a great job of articulating how even a great success, like finishing a thesis, will almost always yield some unwanted consequences. Often we at least intuit these, and the fear of them can cause us to…
Read MoreWell Paid New York Times Writers Have Interesting Theoretical Discussion on Whether Poverty is Good for (Other) Writers
“Do Money Woes Spur Creativity or Stifle It?” This was the dingbat question editors of the New York Times Bookends column considered worth debating this week. I’ll share my full comment on the piece in a moment, but first: can you even imagine asking this about practitioners in any non-arts field? I can’t! Gives you…
Read MoreWhy a Course on Weight Loss for Writers?
I will soon be starting my next SavvyAuthors’ exclusive Weight Loss for Writers class. To my knowledge, you won’t find another class like it anywhere. But why a class on weight loss just for writers? Well, for one thing, writing is a sedentary occupation, so it’s easy for writers to gain weight. For another, overweight (yes,…
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