We know, we know – another day, another share about writing habits and goals. It’s a new year. It’ll die down.
In an article on BookBaby, Michael Gallant suggests you can build momentum, increase your productivity, and make your creative life a little easier by simplifying your goals with micro-tasks. As Gallant writes, he will often step back and ask “What’s one next thing I can do to help this piece of writing?” Simple, but effective.
Gallant was inspired by long-distance runner Coree Woltering, who managed to run fifty miles a day by counting to ten over and over.
We don’t recommend this.
But Gallant suggests a modified (for sanity) version for your writing. “When I repeatedly ask myself to think of one next thing I can do to help my writing, I’m following Woltering’s example of chipping away at large tasks by setting and completing much smaller tasks along the way,” he says.
He suggests a few ideas to get you in the right mindset:
- Little changes add up. On days when Gallant doesn’t have the mental space for his writing, he’ll tackle a few small changes: Better chapter titles or opening sentences, fact-checking, or even document formatting. While some of these tasks won’t get his manuscript that much closer to the finish line, they do need to be done. And they give him a sense of momentum when he needs it most: when he doesn’t feel like writing.
- Momentum is groovy. “Getting started can be hard, but riding momentum is easier,” Gallant says. “Repeatedly considering what the next tiny step should be — and then completing it — quickly becomes habit. Once you hit your flow, the micro-challenges start to fall like dominos and the micro-accomplishments accumulate faster into creative momentum.”
- Getting small details right now means less editing later. While you might not feel too productive is your writing session ends with only a few rewritten openings, these small changes can save you time in the editing process later.
- The big picture is still there. Even when you take some “time off” to work on small details, your overall big picture is still waiting for you. “Using micro-goals makes my big-picture understanding of a writing project stronger and more nuanced,” Gallant says. “If I continually ask myself what the one next thing is, every small task is defined in the context of helping finish the larger work—which means I’m at least glancing at the big picture with every micro-step forward.”
