One tool against procrastination

Jurgen Wolff's August Brainstorm E-Bulletin discusses Tyler Cowen writing in Money Magazine, who offered an insight into one of the major causes of procrastination: we over-estimate the amount of control we have over our day.

So we could do that unwelcome task first thing in the morning but we say we'll do it later. However, as the day goes on there are more interruptions and more demands from others and it becomes more and more difficult to do what we've postponed - so we promise ourselves we'll do it tomorrow... but not necessarily first thing...

ACTION: Apply the micro-task method to this. Spend a minimum of five minutes on the hardest or least appealing task first thing. Often going that far makes it easier to finish right then. If not, then give it another five minutes first thing the next day.

How to write like George Orwell

In Writing Magazine (September 2009) www.writingmagazine.co.uk Tony Rossiter writes about what you can learn from one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers.

He discusses Orwell’s 6 elementary rules but under the 6th Break any of these rules rather than write anything outright barbarous, Rossiter quotes Orwell as saying ‘Good Prose is like a window-pane.’ He believed that before putting pen to paper a writer should ask himself 4 key questions:

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?