Comments on: Writing Excuses Season 2 Episode 32: The Most Important Thing Dan Learned In The Last Year

By: Rafael

Rafael — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:57:04 +0000

So to put in in the simplest way possible:

JUST WRITE!

Works for me!

By: Howard Tayler

Howard Tayler — Mon, 25 May 2009 15:09:33 +0000

Sorry, folks. I’m the guy who usually does the write-ups, and I was at a convention all weekend. I crashed exhausted last night, and didn’t notice that Producer Jordo hadn’t uploaded an audio file yet. I went to sleep without it even occurring to me that perhaps I ought to email him.

The file arrived at 1:22 AM.

I didn’t make it out of my bedroom for another seven hours beyond that.

Episode 33 is now live!

By: DarkEyedBlues

DarkEyedBlues — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:54:58 +0000

they spoiled us with early updates. Now we are back to late updates and it’s going to drive us crazy.

By: Linda

Linda — Mon, 25 May 2009 08:25:48 +0000

It’s Monday morning … no new episode that’s hopefully more applicable to us beginners … Oh! that’s right – it’s Memorial Day in the U.S…

*long-distance trans-Atlantic phone connection crackles and dies*

By: Colter Hawksteter

Colter Hawksteter — Mon, 25 May 2009 03:25:57 +0000

This episode was really good; it’s nice to have realistic and informed expectations of working in the industry. Thanks guys!

By: Mike Barker

Mike Barker — Sat, 23 May 2009 00:04:11 +0000

@jabberer Keeping yourself on track is a running battle. One of the advantages of a journal or just scrap notes that I’ve found is that writing down that new idea, scribbling a little about the serendipitous factoid that I ran across — getting down the extra sprouts and blind alleys quickly usually lets me set them aside and go back to the work I thought I was doing. Similarly, having at least a rough plan or outline — even just an image or perhaps a one-line pitch — can help keep the work on focus. Third trick, while I’m rambling on — take a hard look at what is pulling you off-focus. Sometimes there’s another character, another good idea, something that really deserves to be pulled up and worked on, or sometimes it’s just that there is a real problem with the work you’re doing — your backbrain is trying to tell you that the last 3,000 words have been expanding on a mistake, and you’re going to have to rework them. Sometimes you save time by stepping back and taking a hard look at what’s going on.

But, yeah, staying on track and focus is hard. I end up making up little reminders — First Things First. And use those scrap notes — I scribble little notes and file them. If I just try to ignore them, my backbrain insists on reminding me about them. But once I write them down, my backbrain lets go of them. Your backbrain may vary.

Maybe we can get Brandon, Howard, and Dan to talk about staying on focus sometime.

By: Raethe

Raethe — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:37:41 +0000

John’s remark is even funnier if you take away the punctuation marks in between.

By: John Brown

John Brown — Thu, 21 May 2009 23:12:57 +0000

The Jerk,

Dan makes us all jealous. It’s okay to hate him just a little

By: jabberer

jabberer — Thu, 21 May 2009 07:01:31 +0000

Task switching is what kills me. I’ve really got to focus on one thing and get it done. If i’m not careful my writing becomes a hydra, with new heads continually sprouting before i can get one finished off.

By: Mike Barker

Mike Barker — Wed, 20 May 2009 04:44:23 +0000

Task switching? When I was running programming teams, one of the great complaints was interruptions and having to change jobs. Most programmers like to focus on one thing and keep working on that until it gets done. Unfortunately, sometimes work requirements don’t allow that luxury.

We tackled it from the “set down” side. As I remember it, some of the key points in our list of ways to deal with this included:
– make your plans explicit. It may not be evident that sitting with a cool drink in hand, feet up, listening to music and staring at the ceiling, you are engaged in heavy thinking. This was partly to avoid the explosions and anger when someone interrupted. Posting a schedule, putting up a notice, taking the phone off the hook — let other people know that this is not a good time to interrupt.
– break at the right point. Sometimes you need to say I’ll stop in two hours or when I get to this point. Admittedly, two hours may stretch, but stopping at a good rest point where you can pick up more easily next time can be very helpful.
– make pickup notes! Right now you know what you will need to know to pick it up later. Sit down and write at least some notes to yourself to help with the restart.
– plan for interruptions. One of the things we noticed was that we didn’t keep the design up to date with changes as we worked on it — we knew that we had made those changes and we would change the documentation later. But when you set it down, you forget all of that mental context. If you keep your outline and design and name lists and all that stuff up to date, setting it down and then picking it up doesn’t depend so much on mental context.
– break the project into smaller pieces. I think everyone loves uninterrupted, dedicated long-term effort. But when you don’t have that luxury, having the project in bite-size pieces that you can work on in the time you have makes it easier.

Having a good solid design or outline should make it easier to set things down. Momentum, the mental context, is the way we enjoy working, but as you point out it is very sensitive to interruptions. The trick is to learn how to capture enough of that context to make picking it up again easier.