a million monkeys typing

“50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work”

Posted January 20th, 2005 at 12:55pm

Found via WOYP: 50 Strategies for Making Yourself Work. Although this is meant mainly for writers, there’s some good general advice there, too.

Work avoidance is one of the major paradoxes of the writing profession. Generally, writers want to write (or want to have written), but all too often we find ourselves doing anything else but. We’ll mow lawns, do the dishes, polish silverware–anything to keep from facing the blank page. At the same time we know we eventually have to get to work, so we come up with all sorts of strategies for forcing ourselves to the keyboard.

I can personally vouch for many of them, including the “put the wristwatch in the drawer” one, as I tend to overwatch the clock when I’m facing a blank page. Not knowing the time helps me forget about the long moments of nothingness, and keeps me focussed. Of course, on a computer this isn’t so easy.