Productivity
Feb. 13, 2013
Relax! You’ll Be More Productive
Tony Schwartz: *Writing just four and half hours a day, I completed both books in less than six months and spent my afternoons on less demanding work.*
Tags: links
Feb. 6, 2013
Cory Doctorow: Writing in the Age of Distraction
“Don’t be ceremonious…. When the time is available, just put fingers to keyboard and write.”
Tags: Cory Doctorow · quotes for writers · writing links
Dec. 13, 2012
Orwell in torment
*It is now 16 years since my first book was published, & abt 21 years since I started publishing articles in the magazines. Throughout that time there has literally been not one day in which I did not feel that I was idling…* (quote)
Tags: George Orwell · quotes for writers
Dec. 12, 2012
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, happiness and flow
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Creativity, happiness, and flow (TED talk)
Tags: flow · happiness · Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi · TED talks · video
Oct. 2, 2012
William James: The Importance of Habit
“There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual…”
Tags: habit · quotes · William James
Jan. 24, 2012
Tweet of the Day
Alain de Botton: “Good work tends to happen only at the end of day: when the fear of accomplishing nothing finally exceeds fear of doing it badly.”
Tags: Alain de Botton · quotes for writers
Jun. 26, 2011
Leonardo, procrastinator
Leonardo da Vinci’s epic procrastination and the practical use of procrastination as a sign that your work (rather than yourself) may be dull.
Tags: Leonardo · On Writing · procrastination · writing tips
Jun. 10, 2011
Think Quantity
Looking over the numbers of prolific artists and innovators reinforces the basic rule: Creativity is a function of the quantity of work produced.
Tags: creativity · On Writing · procrastination · writing tips
Mar. 30, 2011
What information consumes
Economist Herbert Simon: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.”
Tags: quotes
Mar. 15, 2011
What good shall I do this day?
Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule: “What good shall I do this day?”
Tags: Benjamin Franklin
Feb. 16, 2011
Daniel Pink: What Motivates Us
An animation of Daniel Pink’s wonderful lecture about what really motivates creatives and other “idea workers.”
Tags: Daniel Pink · motivation · video
Jan. 5, 2011
Quote of the Day
Arnold Bennett: “The chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose.”
Tags: Arnold Bennett · inspiration · procrastination · quotes · quotes for writers
Jan. 3, 2011
The Bermuda Triangle of Productivity
The Bermuda Triangle of Productivity
Tags: cartoons
Oct. 8, 2010
The Cure for Procrastination
Merlin Mann’s advice: first, care.
Tags: Merlin Mann · procrastination · quotes for writers
Oct. 4, 2010
James Surowiecki: Later
Procrastination makes no sense. It is against our own interests, it makes us miserable, and we procrastinators want desperately to stop. So why do we do it?
Tags: James Surowiecki · procrastination · The New Yorker · writing links
Aug. 2, 2010
The Sawyer Effect
Tom Sawyer and the power of intrinsic motivation.
Tags: Daniel Pink · Jonah Lehrer · motivation · procrastination · writing life
Jun. 5, 2010
Writers Unplugged
Myself, I’ve set up a second computer, devoid of internet, for my fiction-writing. That’s to say, I took an expensive Mac and turned it back into a typewriter. (You should imagine my computer set-up guy’s consternation when I insisted he drag the internet function out of the thing entirely. “I can just hide it from [...]
Tags: Jonathan Lethem · quotes for writers
May. 21, 2010
Writing Like It’s 1999
Why I use a ten-year-old, slow, WiFi-free ThinkPad: it’s the perfect writer’s computer.
Tags: computers · On Writing · technology · ThinkPad · writing tools
Apr. 28, 2010
The Price of Procrastination
“Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task.” — William James
Tags: procrastination · quotes · quotes for writers · William James
Feb. 17, 2010
Henry Miller’s Eleven Commandments
Commandments 1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to “Black Spring.”3. Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!5. When you can’t create you [...]
Tags: Henry Miller · quotes for writers