Читать книгу The 12 Week Year for Writers - Michael Lennington - Страница 10

If you're like most writers, you've tried all kinds of things to get more writing done. I sure have. One of the most tempting things to do when you're stuck is to look around for shortcuts and technological fixes. There are thousands of apps out there promising to solve all your writing problems. Who hasn't downloaded a cool new Pomodoro timer, or a social media blocker, or a new writing app that promises effortless productivity?

Thanks to the digital revolution, most writers have spent dozens, if not hundreds of hours researching, testing, and mastering an ever-expanding writing stack. By writing stack, I mean the applications writers use to get their writing done. Some writers have a short stack of just a few key apps, while others might routinely use ten or more. In any case, the goal of every writing stack is the same: to make the process of writing as efficient and enjoyable as possible.

Unfortunately, none of these apps hold the secret recipe for more productive writing careers. The prolific science fiction author Ray Bradbury once put it this way, “Put me in a room with a pad and a pencil and set me up against a hundred people with a hundred computers - I'll outcreate every … sonofabitch in the room.” Like all shortcuts, writing apps only address the symptoms, not the fundamental source of our challenges. Writing is hard, so we look to writing apps that promise “focused” or “distraction free” writing, or timers that will cure our time management problems and help us achieve “flow.” Don't misunderstand, many of these apps are great at what they do, and I use some of them myself, but they function at the tactical level. They can help you write a bit faster, or get your endnotes done more easily, or block out distractions.

If you're focused on the tactical level, though, you may be missing what psychologists call the executive functions: planning, strategy, and process control. Recent academic research bears out just how important thinking strategically is. In a series of experiments conducted with students at Stanford University and the University of Michigan, researchers found that the ability to achieve a range of goals (getting good grades, losing weight, learning to program, etc.) and to perform challenging and unfamiliar tasks in a laboratory setting was closely related to having a “strategic mindset.” A person with a strategic mindset is someone who routinely prompts themselves to think strategically about their situation. In the study, the most successful students were those who reported most frequently asking themselves questions like: “What can I do to help myself?”, “How else can I do this?”, and “Is there a way to do this even better?”

Most writers (like most people generally), however, don't approach their work strategically. Most writers don't have a rock-solid system for planning, conducting, and tracking their work on a regular basis. Instead, many writers start with vague and ambitious goals (Write a novel! Publish a world-famous newsletter!) and then fail to create realistic and focused plans capable of helping achieve them. For others, problems emerge when they get stuck or lose motivation halfway through a project. Without a strategy for staying on track their momentum fades, their progress slows to a crawl, and their project winds up seriously delayed or abandoned.

Think of it this way: the greatest writing app in the world isn't going to help if you don't sit down to write often enough. The slickest social media blocker isn't going to do much good if you don't know what you're supposed to be doing when you sit down to write. Productive writers, on the other hand, have all uncovered a timeless truth: If you don't have a strategy and a plan for making the best use of your tools, even the best tools can't help.