Kitchen timers are the latest time-management trend. Fans of the Pomodoro Technique say to set the timer for 25 minutes, work with total focus, then take a five-minute break. I like the idea, and I’ve tried variations on the timer technique. But when I’m on deadline, a timer adds to the stress, plus I chafe [...]

Second in a two-part series! Wherein I (a) use a helpful structure to explore how I could get what I need, and at the same time (b) see what it’s like to do things just-enough. I don’t have to be a perfectionist all the time.* What I want: I’d like to enjoy those Big Projects [...]

Elsewhere* on the interwebs, I’ve been exploring how I might get a blog post up faster than usual this week, even in the midst of juggling other Very Big Projects. It occurred to me that these same explorations might themselves make a good post. Here are my musings, posted almost verbatim, as an experiment in [...]

OK, enough writer’s angst. Today, back to the to-do list! Specifically, Mark Forster’s take on it, called Autofocus. I’ve referred to Autofocus a few times not because it’s the be-all and end-all of time management tools (no such thing—you gotta do what works for you), but because it’s so different from what’s out there. It [...]

I’m continuing to explore how to get drafts written more quickly as a way, if not to short-circuit the stress of writing, at least to manage it better. In my last post I recommended the Gigantic Outline. Today’s technique is from Robert Boice, whom I’ve mentioned in previous posts. Boice recommends an approach he calls [...]