Stop in the Middle
"When you hit your daily word goal, stop. Stop even if you're in the middle of a sentence. Especially if you're in the middle of a sentence. That way , when you sit down at the keyboard the next day, your five or ten words are already ordained, so that you get a little push before you begin your work...."- Cory Doctorow
I printed out a bunch of articles to read this weekend and this one quite was on top. I read it and immediately could see a couple examples where this works and does not work for me. Let me share them with you.
Several years ago I worked in a refinery and had a large L shape desk. At the beginning of the day I would start working and by the end of the day you could barely see my desk from the papers and prints. Before I left for the day I used to pick up all of my papers, put them in folders, and get them off my desk. Next day the cycle stated all over again. My productivity was very high.
This is an example where I left nothing undone and it worked for me. I was very productive. Interestingly, I never clear my desk any more on my new job.Because I do not, I do believe that I am less productive as a result if this.
The second example I would like to share deals with writing blog posts. Often times I see something I like and enter the idea in a new post. I might even write a sentence our two. This serves to get me going when I have time to finish writing the post. This is an example of stopping in the middle. I just start without spending time planning my actions.
What I see, at least for me, is that the idea of stopping in the middle is good for creative work but not for repetitive tasks. The clean slate allows me to take a few minutes to come up with the best plan before I execute. The stop in the middle strategy helps me to continue the plan execution.
Today's question:
"Do you ever use the little push of the stop in the middle strategy.?"
"When you hit your daily word goal, stop. Stop even if you're in the middle of a sentence. Especially if you're in the middle of a sentence. That way , when you sit down at the keyboard the next day, your five or ten words are already ordained, so that you get a little push before you begin your work...."- Cory Doctorow
I printed out a bunch of articles to read this weekend and this one quite was on top. I read it and immediately could see a couple examples where this works and does not work for me. Let me share them with you.
Several years ago I worked in a refinery and had a large L shape desk. At the beginning of the day I would start working and by the end of the day you could barely see my desk from the papers and prints. Before I left for the day I used to pick up all of my papers, put them in folders, and get them off my desk. Next day the cycle stated all over again. My productivity was very high.
This is an example where I left nothing undone and it worked for me. I was very productive. Interestingly, I never clear my desk any more on my new job.Because I do not, I do believe that I am less productive as a result if this.
The second example I would like to share deals with writing blog posts. Often times I see something I like and enter the idea in a new post. I might even write a sentence our two. This serves to get me going when I have time to finish writing the post. This is an example of stopping in the middle. I just start without spending time planning my actions.
What I see, at least for me, is that the idea of stopping in the middle is good for creative work but not for repetitive tasks. The clean slate allows me to take a few minutes to come up with the best plan before I execute. The stop in the middle strategy helps me to continue the plan execution.
Today's question:
"Do you ever use the little push of the stop in the middle strategy.?"
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