getting going

Location, Location, Location

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Last May I was writing a huge book about Blake’s 7 plus a two-hour Doctor Who radio drama and a short one-act stage play for the Birmingham Rep. As you do. That’s actually the little cauldron I was in when I thought of The Blank Screen and so started writing that book at the same time. You can of course argue about the quality of my work – Doctor Who: Scavenger comes out next month so you can even hear it for yourself – and I did use half a dozen productivity tools to handle it all. But one that really helped was that I moved around.

I wrote Blake’s 7 in my office on a 27in iMac. I wrote the Doctor Who on my MacBook Pro, mostly in my living room. And then while this wasn’t as hard-and-fast, I did write at least some of the play on my iPad in the kitchen.

It got so I associated certain rooms and machines with certain projects. The Blank Screen is definitely an iPad book: I wrote that going everywhere, starting with the first thousand words on a bus ride to go see my mother. But Blake’s 7 is definitely an iMac: I say this to you and I can see it. My Word document open here, an episode of the show there or audio from an interview or a scanned document from the BBC Written Archives there.

I don’t think I ever told any of my editors or producers this, but in my head if I had to call them about something, I would first go to the room and the machine that I associated with that.

This was entirely a contrivance. The complete text and all notes for all of these projects were always on all of these machines at the same time. I could and when necessary did start a sentence of one book on one machine and finish it on another.

And at every place I also read RSS news. So I don’t know why it’s taken me ten months to find out that other people benefit from this madness too. ImpossibleHQ calls it Workstation Popcorn. Meh. But the ideas in their article about it fit what worked for me and they go further. Literally. This bunch recommends dividing your day’s tasks into groups and then physically moving to different locations between each set:

Once you finish all the tasks in group #1, get up and move. Close your tabs, pack your bags, and physically move your butt to your next spot. If you can, walk or bike to your next stop. Avoid driving if you can. The physical activity is important.

Workstation Popcorn – ImpossibleHQ

Hmm. I’m a writer, we’re supposed to be sedentary. But biking advice aside, there’s a lot to like in this piece and quite a bit to think about. Also a lot to wade through, but have a good go.

Never mind the quantity – why working smarter is better than harder

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This hits me in the stomach: I am so used to working all the time, constantly working. I cope better with rejection than I do with relaxation. But the more I’ve had to do as my career has grown and as I’ve started thinking about the productivity tools I’ve developed or that I’ve gleefully stolen, I’m changing. I work fewer hours now but I get more done and while I’m still figuring this out, it’s already clear that a lot of is down to how effectively I work.

Whenever I have something on my mind, I seem to find it everywhere in front of me too. So I’m not surprised that I was drawn across the space and time of the internet to the 99U site where they in their turn had found The Creativity Post. That’s a site that offers advice on this very issue. Specifically, it lists 21 tips to ensure you’re working smarter, not harder.

I loathe list journalism and I’ll give you why:

1) It’s easy and empty to just pick a number and write to it

b) It’s a kind of click bait where what they could say in one paragraph is split across pages just to get you to click

iii) I can’t think of a third thing and often enough, neither can any list journalist. But it doesn’t stop them.

In this case, I think we can make a ready exception because that number 21 feels calculated rather than a stab in the dark. And because this is all on one page. And because I think the The Creative Post comments make a lot of sense. Here’s one , for instance:

9. Delineate a time limit in which to complete task.

Instead of just sitting down to work on a project and thinking, “I’m going to be here until this is done,” try thinking, “I’m going to work on this for three hours”. The time constraint will push you to focus and be more efficient, even if you end up having to go back and add a bit more later.

Work Smarter Not Harder – The Creativity Post

Obviously I recommend you read the lot. And I’m also exploring The Creativity Post in general now. But let us also tip a hat to 99U for finding it for me.

 

 

Use the Force – and edit later

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One of my books was peer-reviewed by an academic who criticised the first draft with the comment that the first third was plainly rushed. The last two thirds, he or she said, were clearly far more considered and therefore vastly superior.

You know where this is going, don’t you? I’d spent five months writing the first third and one week doing the rest.

That wasn’t through some disinterest in the ending, it was more that I found it hard to start. Not in the sense of putting my backside down on the chair, rather that I had to find the right point and the right tone to start the book or the whole thing wouldn’t work. It was very important to me and I wanted to get this one right, more than ever.

But pondering turned into paralysis and though I was writing away all the time, I was really rewriting. I have no idea how many goes I had at the opening chapters. I just know that the deadline got frighteningly close and that suddenly I was having to write at speed and at 2am.

PressPageThumb03Stuff it, I’m going to tell you. The book was my first, BFI TV Classics: The Beiderbecke Affair (UK edition, US edition). It was important to me because everything is, of course, but also it was my first book. Plus it was about The Beiderbecke Affair, the 1980s drama serial by Alan Plater that either you don’t know at all or you are already humming the theme. It’s astonished me how many people have written to say they loved that show and also that they really believed they were the only ones. It was a show that felt like your own. It was that personal. I think it was Alan’s best work and that’s saying something because he wrote 300 or more scripts for television, stage, film and radio.

He was also a friend. He died in 2010 and not many months after that, I phoned up the British Film Institute to propose this. Someone should do a bio of Alan but I can’t, that would turn a friend into a journalism subject. But I could do Beiderbecke. I could really do Beiderbecke. It’s personal to me just as it is with so many.

Here’s how personal it got. I have roller blinds on my office window but I’ve never got them to work. They’re just hanging up there at the top, half stuck in knots. And it’s a big window. So at 2am, the lights on in my office, the dark night outside, that big window is a mirror. Even under deadline pressure, I was getting really, really, really intense about a particular point to do with the show. And I promise you I saw Alan Plater reflected in the window. He was leaning back in his chair, lighting up a cigarette, and saying that it’s only a TV show, William.

I didn’t have time to rewrite the last two thirds much. But I also didn’t need to.

Even when I went to the second draft – and I must say that anonymous academic had a lot of really good points that I stole, as well as some that I just ignored – I didn’t have to change the back of the book.

Sometimes, you just have to press on and, sometimes, that works. I’ve discovered that my top writing speed is twenty pages of script or 10,000 words a day and that I can keep that up for about eight days in a row. Whenever I’ve had to do that, it’s been with the full realisation that I’m going to have to change a lot later. Edit, improve, fix, rewrite. It’s true. But even in those times, it is remarkable – to me – how much doesn’t have to be fiddled with.

Stop analysing, just do it.

And then analyse later. I’m not advocating being careless about your work, but I am saying it’s easier to change something than it is to make those first marks on the page.

Imaginary commutes

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Is this a thing? I heard of it for the first time today, in fact three hours ago. Actor/writer John Dorney mentioned that he’s learning the clarinet on his imaginary commute to work. Now, he could well have invented the term – the man writes some of the most imaginative Doctor Who dramas for Big Finish – or he could just be borrowing it. But either way, I’m having it.

Currently my commute is across the landing from the bedroom to my office via a bathroom. Sometimes, not always, I’ll throw in a trip downstairs to the kitchen on the way. I’m crazy.

But the idea of an imaginary commute is to set aside a time in which you don’t work and you’re not at home, not really. You probably are. But take a specific set time for it: a time you will go to work, a time it will take to travel there and a time you will arrive and get straight down to it. Fit something you want to do in between, something that’s at least broadly possible within a normal commute. John says he reads too and anyone can do that. Anyone can see the benefit of having a set time put aside for reading too.

The clarinet needs more imagination but I’m fine with that, I’m more a piano man.

Feel great about reading this

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Tell yourself you can have a treat afterwards. If I could get it to you, there is a biscuit here with your name on it. And doubtlessly you can find or think of many treats and rewards for yourself – and this is reportedly one way to get yourself to do stuff.

…my father created a system of small rewards to help me get through schoolwork. The fundamental basis of the system is counter-intuitive: If you want to get five tasks done, my father always said, first find five additional but enjoyable tasks to do.

Sidin Vadukut writing on Quartz. He makes it sound there as if you have to reward yourself with another task and I like the way that works but he's speaking more broadly than that. He's saying that you can, for instance, research something you're interested in buying. That could be your treat for doing the horrible thing. It doesn't have to be caffeine- or sugar-related.

You can read his whole piece with good and strong arguments here and I must also tip my hat to the 99U site which spotted this.

My only thing against it, really, is that I can see myself ballooning up under the amount of tea or chocolate biscuits I'd end up eating. Actually, that's one serious concern but my only other thing against this is that sometimes it's good to do lots of bad things. If I have a lot of calls to get out of the way, I will do them better and faster by just whacking through the lot one after another. If I stopped between them, for any reason, I would find it just a bit harder to pick up the phone again.

I have to fool myself into cold phone calls so perhaps that's just a weakness of mine. I'll think about this.

Elite Death Squirrels

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Sometimes… look, The Blank Screen is about being creative and productive, most especially for writers but also for normal people too. Consequently, you will always find something here that is meant to help you get more things out of the way so you can get on with writing.

But sometimes, you just have to say bollocks to productivity.

I'm having an odd day where I think I've got to go to a meeting later and I know I have to get through a lot of jobs before I can leave. So I sat down at 05:00 and I began doing Serious Jobs.

And at about 05:01 I wrote this: “I was forced to do it by Elite Death Squirrels”.

By 07:00 I had a thousand words of a story that I doubt I'll ever be able to use anywhere. It certainly doesn't fit any of the pitches I'm doing this month. But it's done, I like it, it's here, and if I now have to run out into the snow without everything else done, well, bollocks to productivity.

Sometimes.

Stop churning and just do it

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Look, you're reading this but you know you should be doing that thing. Five minutes, you're giving yourself five minutes. And a mug of tea. Obviously you have to phone your accountant, that's not prevaricating. And if you don't plan the week's food shopping, nobody will.

Stop.

And start.

That's possibly a mixed signal there but you know what I mean and you also know it already. In your heart of hearts and your head of heads, you know you should be doing that thing right now.

All I'm adding to that is this single point: you didn't really enjoy that mug of tea, you didn't fully concentrate on that accountant phone call. If you could genuinely put something out of your mind then maybe you could really prevaricate, maybe it would even be a good thing to be able to clear your head like that. But you can't so you can't and it isn't. Add up all the time you spend churning over this thing and it is invariably far longer and more insiduously painful than just doing the bleedin' thing right now.

It won't be easier for doing it now. It won't magically be all okay and sunshine.

But it will be done.

A quick fix for days you’re below par

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A quick fix when your problem is you and how you're feeling. This works especially if you're feeling slow and lethargic, it's good if you're feeling in any way too below par to get any work done.

Go see somebody.

I don't mean a doctor. I mean arrange to get a lunch or a coffee with someone now.

It may well be that what you ought to be doing is staying right where you are and getting this bastard piece of work done, but the odds are good that you would just continue pushing the pieces around without getting anywhere. And the odds are high that whatever you do accomplish will be about as below par as you.

So if the hour or the day is not going to work out, spend that time or a key part of it going to have a coffee with someone.

Because it does three things.

The obvious first one is that coffee will perk you up, you use a percolator to perk you up now.

But there is also the business of who you go to see. There's the issue of whether they can see you, but before you pick up that phone you need to have thought of someone to call and you need to have an idea of what to call them about. Maybe you can just phone them with the idea of getting a coffee; I tend to need something more to offer them, like it's a coffee about doing this or it's a tea about doing that. Whatever it is, you have to pick the person and you have to think of what you'll say and you have to phone them.

And you'll then have to do that with the next person if your first choice can't make it.

Then when you do meet them, though, that's when the third and by far the biggest boost comes. This works with anyone you meet, anyone at all. But it's greater if it's someone you like. Greater still if it's someone you in any way admire. It is beyond measure greater if you also fancy them.

Whoever they are and whatever you think of the way they flick their hair, you will be performing for them.

There is just no possibility that you will present yourself as this half-dead sloth who could barely type a word. You will bounce. You will lie.

And the lying and the performance will pick you up.

Then get back to work as quickly as you can before it all fades.

Star Wars – May the Force help you work

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I saw the original Star Wars when I was seven years old and it changed my life. We all have faith in something; usually a mixture of some personal beliefs with modern science. I am like that also. Mostly, I just believe in what works. Which, for me, is The Force. I admit it.

James Altucher of 99U advocates following Star Wars for sage advice on how to be more productive.

He's quite serious. And has a lot to say to persuade you.

Odd that leaves out Yoda's “Do or do not – there is no 'try'” though.

Pattern Weeks part 4 – did it work?

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Previously…

Last year I cracked getting up at 5am every weekday to write and it was a boon. It was bigger than that, it was huge. This year I want to stamp some kind of structure on my weeks, a base pattern for how Monday-Friday should go. It never will: no week is ever going to stick to a plan. But by having one, I hope to be aware of what I should be doing and have each hour be more of a conscious choice to do the plan or go off it.

Six days ago I told you my plan was finally ready for you to see, albeit a bit redacted. Now, read on.

Day 6.

I stuck to the plan perfectly for Monday to Wednesday, inclusive. Then Thursday was a day of meetings and a talk in the evening that ran late into the evening. I can't ever just go to bed when I come back from one of those so it was a late night and that had its impact on Friday.

The best thing from the pattern week is easily that it got me to make calls. This is, for some reason, a real weakness with me: I'm far better yapping face to face and I can write a crackin' email, but cold phone calls are tough. I do go in phases, though. There's a bit about this in my book, The Blank Screen, (US edition, UK edition) where I mention that my most successful calls happen between 11am and noon. That's quite true: I don't understand it, I can't see a particular reason, but I've noticed it. When I was writing that chapter, though, I think I was on a high for some reason because I said I had five calls to make and that I'd just whack through them. I did have them to do and I did whack through them.

But it was unusual. And I have to be aware now that while calls are a difficulty, I do seemingly have these highs and so it's far too soon to tell: did I make my calls this week because of the pattern schedule forcing me to or did I just happen to be good at phoning people? We'll see next week, I suppose. But for now I'm choosing to think it was the pattern. I made sixteen calls and perhaps seven of them were successful.

If you've ever worked in sales – and I haven't so I'm just guessing here – then I imagine the figure of sixteen doesn't impress you but the success rate might. It's certainly encouraging.

There was one other thing that was good about working to this pattern instead of my usual chaotic plate-spinning. And it was also a bad thing. That's great for having something to tell you about, it's ace that I can have a natural bridge between the good and the bad, but I didn't want any bad.

Here's the thing. At 10:59 on each day I was making calls, I would rush to start and then at 12:00 I would stop it and feel great. So far, so excellent. But that happened with each hour that I had planned and the pattern has huge, giant gaps which is where I'm supposed to be doing the work and instead, I'd look at that and think phew, I can relax a bit now. And I did. Too much.

As a result, I don't feel I got enough done in the week and that is exactly the opposite of what this was all supposed to do.

So I'm just going to have to work harder, aren't I?