- Sep 2022
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www.locusmag.com www.locusmag.com
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Writing in the Age of Distraction
1) short daily sessions (20m). short so you can always make it happen. daily so even short sessions compound into volume. Vgl [[Compound interest of habits 20200916065059]]
2) Stop unfinished , leaving an obvious point to pick up from again. I.e. [[Vastklik notes als ratchet zonder terugval 20220302102702]]
3) No research during the session, use TKTKTK
4) No rituals / prerequisites. This makes it harder to find and use 20 mins.
5) Use plain text editor because less distraction than wordprocessor 'helping' you by getting in your way. Just the words, everything else later. (Fun argument: all the coders who make word processors use only plain text editors themselves to get stuff done)
6) no comms / alerts
facit: be as minimalist as possible, so that circumstances don't matter. You, 20mins, plain text editor, ignoring all else.
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Doctorow on writing while avoiding distraction, 2009. What Rendle referenced wrt TKTKTK advice to avoid research during a writing session
Cory does not claim originality, just listing things he finds useful.
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www.robinrendle.com www.robinrendle.comTKTKTK4
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type "TK" where your fact should go
Use a specific marker to be able to later find the things that need completion / factoids added. US journalists use "TK" ("to come" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_come_(publishing) ) or "TKTK"
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I have no idea where I learned this but it works extremely well for me. Often I’ll half quote something I remember like “Thoughts whither have ye TKTKTK” and I’ll often do this for someone’s last name (Jane TKTKTK) or the title of a post (An Ode to TKTKTK). It keeps the momentum up when you need it the most, when the page is the emptiest and requires the most acceleration to get off the ground.
Rendle has used "TKTKTK" and it helps him a lot to keep writing momentum or to jot down half ideas / half remembered things to be researched and fixed later.
I recognise the distracting effect described. Now have added a keyboard shortcut (.tk) that will insert TKTKTK in a text.
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Researching isn't writing and vice-versa. When you come to a factual matter that you could google in a matter of seconds, don't.
Onderzoek/fact-checking <> schrijven When writing don't attempt to find/verify all details you want to mention. Searching for a factoid will distract from getting more text down. (Cory Doctorow 2009 post)
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https://web.archive.org/web/20220904055255/https://www.robinrendle.com/notes/tktktk/
Robin Rendle repeating advice Cory Doctorow described 2009, and Rendle has been using as well.
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