Plan for the Best, Plan for the Worst

What I mean by this maxim is that you should make an optimistic plan for completing work on your current project. For example, I could probably finish by December of 2011 if everything works out. That optimistic plan is highly motivating.

But if I have unforeseen difficulties and don't meet that deadline, I have still planned for the worst case scenario, which is that is will take me longer. Working steadily but inefficiently, I will still get something done; I will still meet external deadlines (just not my own). Planning for the worst outcome in the first place is counterproductive, however. If my best case date for finishing were 2012, then I might not finish until 2013. My goal now is to see how much gets done by December of 11, but if I don't meet that I will still be in good shape.

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You can string together enough "bad" weeks, where you are less productive than you might have been, and still make substantial progress. A bad week, maybe you only had 1-3 days where you made substantial progress, as opposed to 4-7. It doesn't matter. A totally uninspired day of writing still makes its contribution. In fact, I think those bad days are even more significant than the very few days where the muse or duende actually descends upon you.

Pads and Notebooks

I often have one notebook that is devoted entirely to a project or part of a project. The project develops there in pen and ink; bibliography takes shape there. Right now I have one notebook that is devoted only to planning the summer's work and another devoted to planning the "year of reading Latin American poetry."

I wish that I could redevelop the ability to write actual prose by longhand rather than typing. I cannot shape whole paragraphs in handwriting any longer. I'm sure my writing would improve if I had that extra method.

Planning

Planning is not something you do only before you begin a project, but an ongoing process that lasts to the very end. You might have to re-draw your plan every month or every week. Even if you never follow a plan very well, it is still helpful to constantly be planning. In my case, for example, a plan typically falls apart after a very short time, but I keep planning, just as a way of visualizing my way to the completion of a project.