On writing and timing

I am pleased to report that the writing has been going pretty well. I am up to 3738 “shitty first draft” words, 14% of my goal for the month. I have also been successfully implementing the “Pomodoro” method of getting work done.  It’s ridiculously simple, and I’ve used it many times before, and it works really well – and yet somehow I always fall off the wagon at some point. Anyway, the way it works is this: You set a timer for 25 minutes. During that 25 minutes, you work on one task. At the end of the 25 minutes, you get a 5 minute break. Repeat. [You can get a really cute – and free! – Pomodoro timer for your Mac here.]

Ridiculous. And effective.

I have made huge progress on 4 different projects this week, all things I had been avoiding, simply by assigning myself the task of spending at least 25 minutes on each task each day. Sometimes I get motivated to do more than 25 minutes, but I just set the timer again and only do 25 minute increments to avoid getting burned out. I really enjoy switching between the four projects – I get bored and overwhelmed if I spend too much time on one thing, and it’s so fantastic to see such concrete progress across so many things simultaneously.

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