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Observations about my writing process.

I’m learning a lot about my own writing process. Headphones and isolation work nicely. But other than that…

Process drives both word count and quality.

I’ve tried dictating and transcribing. I like it, and can generate tons of text very quickly. It requires a lot of editing before it’s even up to first draft quality. My spoken humor is different from my written humor, so it often requires rewriting, and speaking the punctuation screws with my ability to improvise.

I’ve tried composing directly at the keyboard. This gives me the happiest first drafts, but it’s much slower than dictating.

Humor is hard to do consistently.

Depending on my mood (and probably the levels of various neurotransmitters), my humor levels vary widely. Some of my tips are, in my humble opinion, brilliant and funny. Others read like an encyclopedia.

At this point, I’m concentrating on getting through the rest of my first draft, and humor levels are dropping. I’m much more information-oriented. I’m hoping—really hoping—that on my first cleanup rewrite, my humor kicks back in.

I always wondered why famous comedians had staffs of writers. Now I know. It’s hard to generate that much humor consistently.

Writing a tips book is like writing many small 1-or-2-page books.

Writing a tips book is tricky. Since each tip is basically standalone, with a loose overarching structure holding the whole book together, it’s like my mind sees only one tip at a time. Today, I discovered I’d done essentially the same tip three times without noticing. I spent this morning trying to merge the three into one coherent whole. If you buy the final book, the tip about “Manage Relationships in all the Right Media” is the final version.

Thanks to everyone on Twitter who has been helping out with my pleas for feedback and assistance. I appreciate the support!

What are situations where you want to use in-person communication?

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I’m writing a tip for the book on when to communicate in person, versus electronically. What are some situations where you would shy away from electronic communication and want to go face-to-face or by-phone? I’m doing this as a list of bullet points, so brevity is appreciated.

For example:

  • Propose or break up in person.
  • Give negative performance appraisals in person.

… etc …

How do *you* remember faces and names?

I’m writing a Get-it-Done Guy episode on remembering names and faces. I know how I remember names. But my way isn’t perfect. In fact, if you’ve ever met me and expected me to remember your name, you’ll know my way sucks. (Sorry, Mom. At least, I think your name was “Mom.”)

I may use your answer in the Get-it-Done Guy episode. Please leave your name as you want me to read it if you would like me to give you credit in the episode. Thanks!

So…

How do you remember names and faces?

Can you give me (audio) examples of criticism?

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I’m writing a Get-it-Done Guy episode on criticism. I’d love to include some listener examples of criticism you’ve received in your own voice. It needs to be pretty short, and suitable for family listening. Real examples are preferred. For instance, “You just don’t know what you’re doing.” “Your suit looks great, if you’re  color-blind and have no taste.” etc.

Please call 866-WRK-LESS (866-975-5377) and leave your quote. I’ll use the best couple in the podcast. Please also leave your name and email address so I can contact you for permission.

Thanks!

What systems do you have that are worse than the problem?

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I’m writing a tip on solutions getting to be more complicated than the problem they are meant to solve. For example, I once bought clips to clip together similar pairs of socks during the laundry. Dealing with the darned clip turned out to be a lot more hassle than just sorting and folding my socks in the first place.

In what areas do you have systems that you might not actually need? Here are some of mine:

  • Tracking parts of my finances that aren’t tax or business-related, and that I never go back and look at. (E.g. tracking daily expenses but never actually printing a report to find out how I spend my money.)
  • Sorting socks.
  • Elaborate TO-DO management software.
  • Labeling my bookshelves by subject but not actually filing my books that way.
  • Scheduled “let’s discuss house finances” days that don’t happen.

What about for you?

From sole practitioner to organization guy

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On Twitter, I’ve recently alluded to my new job. I’ve started working at Babson College helping to facilitate a community-wide re-examination of Babson’s capabilities, strategy, and future direction. I will then be helping to implement the community’s recommendations.

This job is incredibly exciting. The new Babson president, Len Schlesinger, has been a colleague, friend, mentor, and originally professor of mine since 1989. He’s one of the most visionary people I have ever met, combined with a firm grasp of data and execution. In short, he dreams big dreams and has what it takes to make them happen.

He came to Babson to build on its strength in entrepreneurship (we’ve been #1 in entrepreneurship for the last 15 years), to take Babson to its next level. What that next level is will be defined by the community in our next four months of conversation.

This should be incredibly exciting! I will continue to produce the Get-it-Done Guy podcast and, of course, will be finishing the Get-it-Done Guy book as well. I hope to continue posting to this blog, though until the book is done and I have more time on my plate, my entries will likely be relatively fewer and farther between.

To hear Len discuss the tension between business pressures and the ethical dimensions of business leadership, listen to (1 hour) Leadership and Ethics Series: “Organizational Leadership in Search of the Triple Bottom Line: The ‘Victoria’s Dirty Secret’ Campaign.

Writing is hard hard hard hard hard!

I’m now late on finishing the first draft of the book, and I’m appalled at how far I have left to go. I based my estimations of how fast I could write on various client writing and things I’d done recently. The book is totally trashing those numbers.

One of the biggest problems seems to be that when I have a conceptual framework, I can write about it, apply it, and generate lots and lots of interesting content. In this book, though, I have lots and lots of random tactical tips. They aren’t linked by any framework or underlying concept, so each chapter, though short, feels like writing a whole separate book. My brain is not happy about this.

For example, if I’m writing an article on how to give feedback, there’s a mental framework I use about saying something positive, giving clear measurables, etc. I can write a chapter about it by giving examples, telling stories, and going deeper into each point. I can then write follow-on chapters by going even deeper into subtle variations on the basic situation, times when feedback is tricky because there are political or romantic implications, etc.

But when I’m writing two pages on giving feedback, followed by two pages on how to write an email subject line… I go to all the work of creating framework and examples for feedback, skim the surface, and then have to purge my brain and start all over with the email chapter.

I tried conversationally creating chapters by just talking about individual tips, but even in that context, I find myself needing to pull together a framework while I talk. My dialog comes out incoherent.

This very blog post is a great example. it’s taken me all of five minutes to write, and it has one underlying concept: writing this book is hard because it’s a mismatch for my cognitive style. I could keep going, most likely, with more examples, exceptions, and possible suggestions I’d give a coaching client who had this same problem. If I could sustain this rate, I could have the book done in three days.

With no underlying concept, though, this would be two sentences long.

Gotta run. The book chapter I’m working on … is currently just two sentences long.

ARRGH!!! The book title is TAKEN!!!! HELP!

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Someone—not me—is coming out with a book called “Work Less, Do More” in just a few weeks. Rats rats rats rats rats. I so loved that title. Any suggestions? I’m at a loss. Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

The way I’m thinking about it, the book is me writing to my 5-year-old nephew, giving him lots of tips about life. (Though it’s being written for adults.) Roughly speaking, the book flow is:

  • A discussion of productivity and why we should focus on happiness and success, not just productivity.
  • The idea that to master happiness and success, we must develop skills about ourselves, people, organizations, and a few other areas.
  • Then each major section of the book is a collection of tips for dealing with those areas. One area will be lots of tips about managing relationships and people. Another wil be about dealing with organizations. etc.

Most chapters will be very brief, 2-3 pages. This is very much a book of tips that will improve your life in ways to increase your happiness and your success. And occasionally…help you get organized. Like my podcast, however, many of the tips will cover how to deal with people, effectively lead organizations, say “No” to your kids, stuff like that…