Silver Clipboard

Jerry Seinfeld and Productivity

Lifehacker has an article on Jerry Seinfeld’s productivity secret. The key, he says, to writing good jokes is to write them every day. But how to keep yourself motivated? He suggests keeping a calendar just for writing. Every day that you manage to write, put a big red ‘X’ through the day. Your only job is now not to break that chain of ‘X’s. The longer you make the chain, the less you will want to break it. This strategy is adaptable for any habit or action that you want to do on a daily basis.

The story at lifehacker is told seconds hand, so while it may be apocryphal, it is nevertheless valuable. I’ve adapted it for growing a pile of index cards on my desk and it certainly works. If I write for thirteen days straight, skipping out on the fourteenth day is made very unappealing by the thought of having to throw out those thirteen cards and starting over.

[Read the article at lifehacker]

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Photograph by jurek d.