More Good Writing Habits: Think. Plan. Write. Think More. Plan more. Rewrite.

In the past few posts, we’ve talked about habits that lead to efficient writing, such as working on a Big Clean Screen and Finding the Flow. Today, let’s dig deeper and focus on the importance of planning before you write and refining that plan while you write. Here goes.

Think First. Write Later.

Word-processing software is irresistible. It can seduce you to start writing before you have begun thinking. Practice safe writing. Put your major thoughts in place before you begin writing. At the very least, collect your thoughts on a single, scribbled work page or a mind map. (I’ll talk more about mind mapping in later posts, but it’s the same technique you learned in junior high school.)

But Begin Writing Before You Have Finished Thinking.

You will learn about your topic simply by writing about it. So, while you must have some plan in place before you begin writing, that plan will change as you write. Let it change. If you stay flexible and open to new ideas while you write, your paper will become deeper and more relevant. And if you wait to start writing until you have finished thinking, you may never start writing at all.

Have a Plan.

But you must have some plan in place before you begin—whether it is a scribbled work page or a detailed, numbered outline. For example, before William Langiewische wrote his 70,000 word article, “American Ground: Unbuilding the World Trade Center,” in The Atlantic Monthly (July and August, 2002)—the longest magazine article ever published—he created a handwritten flow chart taking up several feet of butcher paper. (Langiewische’s butcher-paper outline is reproduced in this Columbia Journalism Article.)

Outline As You Go.

Outlining works. It is a flexible, efficient tool for organizing your thoughts. But many lawyers avoid outlining, believing it requires them to have a global vision of their paper before they write.

Instead, outline in piecemeal fashion while you write. Begin with the most obvious themes: What is your most important case or line of cases? What headings summarize those cases? Then work through your research, case by case, creating new headings and plugging cases into existing headings.

If you approach outlining as a tool, rather than a rigid guideline, outlining will give you control over your writing because it will keep you focused on the big picture. Again, the goal is to have a perfected outline in place by the time you finish writing.

Once you have finished writing and your outline is complete, use that outline as the master key for proofing the structure of your paper. If the outline is perfect, then so is the structure of your paper. The craft of legal writing becomes art through masterful use of structure, so your finished outline is your best resource for fine-tuning structure.

Outline from Memory.

The mind is a wonderful sifting device. If you let your ideas ferment in your brain, the cream will rise to the top. So begin outlining from memory. Your best ideas are probably the ones that come to mind first.

Use Your Research Files As an Outline.

If you have filed your research carefully, those files can also serve as your outline. Keep a careful filing system, with files for major topics and sub-files for lesser topics. Arrange the files in a logical order and order the cases or statutes within each file, as well. The resulting order will resemble the dreaded linear outline and involves only a fraction of the effort involved in creating a linear outline from scratch.

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Next, we’ll talk about thinking with your hands, writing in layers, and talking to yourself while you write. (It helps to be a little bit crazy.) Stay tuned.

P.S. Chapter 12 of  My book covers The Process of Writing and Overcoming Writer’s Block in more detail.

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Good Writing Habits That Will Make Your Writing “Flow.”

My clients often complain to me about how long it takes them to write their papers. I remind them that good writing takes time and care. But we all want to be faster, cleaner and skinnier—both in writing and in life. So this week we are talking about the discipline of writing. What are the habits that will help us to write more efficiently? Yesterday, we talked about Working On a Big, Clean Screen. Now that you are sitting calmly in front of your giant screen, what’s next?

Find the “Flow”

Writing is a solitary activity. Writers and other creative people are often most productive—and most happy—when all other distractions are shut out so that they become totally immersed in their work. In his groundbreaking work, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, the influential psychologist, Haly Csikszentmihalyi, describes the feeling of “flow” that accompanies total absorption in work:

Concentration is so intense that there is no attention left over to think about anything irrelevant, or to worry about problems. Self-consciousness disappears, and the sense of time becomes distorted. An activity that produces such experiences is so gratifying that people are willing to do it for its own sake, with little concern for what they will get out of it, even when it is difficult or dangerous.

Carve Out Time for Writing

Because writing is so demanding, you must set aside time to make it happen. Shut out the world, if only briefly. The essence of writing is reflection and a single block of uninterrupted time will make you productive and focused.

Try working in 45-minute segments, with a 15-minute break as the hour ends to turn to other tasks. 45/15 works like a charm for me.  I can always focus my wandering mind for 45 minutes and email (and life) lose their hold during those writing minutes, because I know I have 15 minutes coming soon to turn life back on. When the next writing hour starts, I feel refreshed and sharp and I see things that I didn’t see when I stopped writing.

Don’t try to push your writing time much beyond and hour and a half. It’s hard to keep a sustained focus for hours and hours. And, in our busy professional lives, it’s not always wise or professional to expect the world to leave us alone for hours on end.

Avoid Multitasking While You Write. (That means no email.) 

Yes, your colleagues expect you to check your email constantly unless you are Asleep or in a Tunnel and your employment contract prohibits sleeping anyway. But switching between tasks makes you less efficient, particularly with complicated tasks such as writing. A 2005 study, No Task Left Behind? Examining the Nature of Fragmented Work,  found that office workers were interrupted an average of every 11 minutes and that, after each interruption, it took 25 minutes to return to the original task. Twenty-five minutes!

After being interrupted, you may not remember where you were in writing a paragraph or dissecting a case. Do you really have a half hour available to get back in your groove? Are minor interruptions, such as email, worth a half hour of your time? Turn off the incoming sound on e-mail so that you feel less like you are on call. Check email if you must, but limit yourself to once an hour. Try holding your phone calls and shutting the door.

And if you really can’t ignore the juicy little ping of email, use a program that shuts the damn thing down and saves you from yourself.

Stop Surfing

The Internet is irresistible. Resist. Resist. Resist. Disconnect while you write. The world will still be there when you return and no one will have even noticed that you were gone.

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In my next posts, I’ll share more tips for whipping your writing life into shape. Stay tuned!

P.S. from the Shameless-Self-Promotion Department: My book is brimming with tips like this.

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Work Habits for Efficient Writing

“And I know it seems easy,” said Piglet to himself, “but it isn’t everyone who could do it.” 

—A. A. Milne                                   

Writing is a discipline so it requires efficient, disciplined work habits. Since we lawyers are being paid to write, we do not have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to strike. Like any professional writer, we must produce on demand.

If you develop good writing habits, those habits will become ingrained. Over time, you will find that writing becomes easier and faster. You will become less bogged down in the process and will have more time to immerse yourself in the final product. So focus on building good habits now. You’ll reap results immediately in improved papers. You live the results for years as your writing life evolves to entail less struggle and more reward.

In the next few posts, we’ll talk about the process of writing, including how to develop good writing habits and how to overcome writer’s block. Here are a few tips to get us started.

Work on a Big Screen

One of the most effective techniques for improving productivity is the size of your computer screen—and the bigger the better. A 2005 New York Times article, Meet the Life Hackers  discusses research by one of the world’s leading experts in “interruption science,” Mary Czerwinski. She found that people completed tasks from 10 percent to 44 percent more quickly if they worked on a massive, 42-inch screen. While most of us probably do not have the luxury of 42-inch screens, you should opt for as large a monitor as you can justify. If you work from a laptop, plug it into a generous monitor.

Keep Your Screen Clear

And keep your screen as clear as possible while you are writing. Czerwinski’s research also showed that a clean screen led to a calm mind and improved productivity.

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Now that you are sitting calmly before your humongous screen, stay tuned for more posts on good writing habits.

P.S. from the Shameless-Self-Promotion Department: my book contains many more scintillating tips like this.

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