Legal Commentary

I've been thinking about the keys to productivity lately, mainly because I've gotten a slow start on the numerous projects I plan to complete during my sabbatical.  It is true that I've had lots of unexpected distractions in the last month, but the key to productivity, in my experience, is to learn to keep writing no matter how many distractions occur. So I'm trying to remind myself of some of the lessons I've learned over the years, which are roughly as follows.

Writing scholarly articles is a creative and hence an emotional process.  One of the keys to productivity is to learn to overcome, sidestep, or simply accept the mental white noise that makes one afraid to commit an idea to paper.  Before I had my first child (the year before I went up for tenure), I used to waste lots of time asking myself whether my idea was good enough to see the light of print.  I still waste time second guessing myself but only a tiny fraction of the time I once did. I've realized that the mental and sometimes literal hand-wringing that accompanies beginning a new project is a luxury I simply can't afford.

Strangely enough, one key to productivity for me was to learn to accept that the process of writing is not linear. I used to expect myself to sit down in the chair and write like a robot: have the idea, outline the article, write the article following the outline to the letter.  I don't know why I expected the process to work this way.  I was an English major in college and never, ever wrote a paper using that process, but I somehow assumed that once I became a "professional" writer things should be different.  As you might guess, trying to write an article that way, trying to "force" the process, led to panic and writer's block, which are emphatically not the keys to productivity.  It was only when I accepted that I can write ten pages on some days and two sentences on others that I became more productive.  I finally accepted the fact that my mind is often the most active on the days I write two sentences because my subconscious is working out the structure and the details of what comes next.  It sounds hokey, I know, but I have truly come to trust that my subconscious will eventually "tell" me what comes next if I just get out of the way. 

I even learned how to get out of the way.  When I am having a really frustrating time in front of the computer and I've written the same sentence over for the fifteenth time, I pack up a bag with a 99 cent black and white composition book, a kitchen timer, and a black gel roller ball pen.  I go to the coffee shop that I expect to be the quietest, and I sit and I write as fast as my hand will go for twenty minutes without stopping.  This process is painful because I force myself to put down every idea I have, no matter how stupid it is, and to even write down every negative thought, such as "this is never going to work," "this doesn't make sense," "why did I start this project?".  The first five minutes are always the hardest, but eventually something useful starts to emerge.   I don't know why this works.  I just know that it does.  Always.  It never fails that the core of the next section of my article is there somewhere amongst the dreck I've just committed to paper.      

Learning to get out of my own way was the biggest contributor to productivity for me, but I have other little tricks as well.  One of my mentors once said to me that every piece of writing represents a compromise with time, and this is the mantra that I repeat to myself when I can't quite let an article go.  I don't, as I once did, wait to start writing until I've read every article ever written on the topic, and I long ago got over the notion that writing can only occur when you have several hours to sit and think great thoughts.  One trick I learned while I was an associate dean was to ALWAYS have my writing project on one of the computer screens in front of me.  It serves as a visual reminder to get back to work on writing the minute someone leaves your office.  Even if you write one sentence at a time, it adds up.

The writing process is so personal that some of the things I've suggested probably don't or won't work for others.  But I'm fascinated by the writing process, and I'm always looking for more tricks to stuff up my sleeve.  What are yours?