I’m going to share something from the actress and author Lauren Graham and completely fail to report which book of hers it comes from. In the book, she shares her approach to writing productively, which comes from a mentor she had. You pick your designated writing time and situate yourself in your writing place. On your computer, you open up whatever you are writing and your journal (or, I suppose, open your physical journal if you keep one of those). And as your timer starts, you can do one of three things. Write on your project, write in your journal, or… nothing.
Sitting and doing nothing is a perfectly acceptable activity using this technique! How freeing! How freeing? How long can you sit doing nothing before your fingers start to itch at the keyboard?
Into that journal: “I am so sick of having to sit and write. I don’t like what I’m working on. I don’t want to write in it. This is so dumb. What a waste of time. Why am I doing this? I don’t even know how to start that next section. Though I wonder if I…” Switching documents, fingers flying—Writing begets writing, which begets more writing.
This all fits with the “just get started” approach to productivity. With this technique—which also leans on the “yes, you can do nothing” permission—you do the bare minimum to get started on something you don’t want to do. Need to write something? Just open up a blank word processing document. And now that you have that document open, go ahead and save it. (You wouldn’t want to lose all the progress you’ve made already!) And now that you’ve saved it, you might as well type a title at the top of the document and save it again. Now that you have a title, maybe a couple ideas for that first paragraph, which then turns into a few sentences, and all of a sudden, you’re off.
But to embrace any of these ideas, we have to convince ourselves of the value of ALL writing to facilitate any other writing. Pull out a piece of scrap paper and copy “All work and no play make Jack a dull boy” a few times until you decide you want to write elsewhere. The goal is to get our minds working in expression. We want to prevent our minds working in other modes or, worst, of not working at all.
Productivity in writing is measured in writing, not in specific progress toward any given writing project. And if you can get started with writing anything, even something that seems ridiculous, silly, or whiny, you have already made progress.
Just. Start. Writing!
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