Comments on: So Many Projects, So Little Focus

By: david silver

david silver — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 18:25:21 +0000

here’s my advice.

go outside.

take with you a notepad and pencil or pen.

find somewhere (a park, a cafe, a chair) to sit.

think. enjoy. be receptive to your environment.

stay there until you have written two to three paragraphs. the notepad should be the size that fits one meaty paragraph (in other words, not 8.5 by 11 but rather those smaller ones that journalists use. when possible, use a yellow notepad). do not worry about filling in quotes or citations or facts or data. in other words, write sentences like “As Haraway notes, blah blah (p. ***). This is important because …” you don’t have to have the exact quote to write what you think about that quote.

upon writing two to three paragraphs, celebrate. wine works well. so does fresh fruit. so do walks. so do all kinds of activities that i won’t mention on your blahg.

go home. get in front of your computer and type your notes in. people say they don’t write pen on paper because it takes too much time to transcribe to computer. this is nonsense. transcribing two to three paragraphs to a computer should take you no more than ten minutes. listen to music while typing if that is your thing.

fill in quotes, citations, facts, and data.

once done, format the paragraphs into double space and check how many pages you have written.

if successful, you will have written two solid pages - more than enough for a day of writing. more importantly, you did it out of the house and off of the computer.

By: KF

KF — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 09:01:45 +0000

Thanks for the comments, both of you. I’m doing a bit better today, as I think I’ve found a means of prioritizing the projects and figuring out which to work on when. The problem, as you rightly note, DR, is the problem of deadlines that are only self-imposed: one of my three major tasks does have an official deadline, but it’s the one that I’m waiting on input from others for, and so I can’t really move forward with it. One of the other two may get a deadline externally imposed, but I don’t know what it will be yet. Aside from that, the deadlines are entirely my own, and thus infinitely fungible, which makes it really hard to figure out where my energy is best spent.

I find myself working very hard, however, on remaining blithely insistent that August 15 is a BLOODY LONG TIME AWAY, thankyouverymuch, so while I want incentives to keep me moving forward, I don’t want them to be too pressing. It’s all about momentum, as you say, but developing momentum can be difficult when one senses a looming brick wall not far ahead…

By: dr

dr — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:41:40 +0000

This is the story of my life — and particularly the story of this summer. When the projects are of different sizes (and, better yet, due at somewhat different times), I can use Dr. Bad Ass’s technique and assign them to different days or segments of days, depending on their scope.

It’s harder when, as now (and as for you, it seems), they’re all more-or-less due at the same time and of the same size and (worse yet) when the deadlines are only meaningful to me, rather than export dates. Then, I try to nibble off pieces and assign them deadlines that feel real, but also mix things up: this week for reading and brainstorming about project x; the following week for getting momentum on project q; and so on. Often, it’s a problem of momentum — once I have that, I can use shorter periods of time more efficiently.

And it’s utterly depressing that August 15 feels as though it’s just around the corner. Sigh.

By: Dr. Bad Ass.

Dr. Bad Ass. — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:44:50 +0000

Since I ALWAYS have several projects going on at once, I tend to divide my time by days. For example, today is designated as “revisions to really old manuscript” day. I’ll also do some errands, of course, and email stuff — by the time all of that is done, I will be lucky to get a solid 2 or 3 hours of work on the revisions. Summer schedule, of course. Tomorrow I go backpacking for the 4th of July, so I’ll excuse myself from writing chores, but Thursday is “write letter for outside reviewers” day. Plus a dentist appointment.

I also have issues with getting started writing, but what I tend to do is to break down the job into little segments. For example, I’ll start by outlining the whole piece that I want to write, and then I can get myself started by choosing a piece of the outline and writing it. For me, the problem is often feeling overwhelmed by the huge thing I have to create. If I can nibble off pieces instead, I cana feel successful by just doing a little part of it.