Writing FAST - Jeff Bollow 2012
Flexible deadlines
Squeeze the most out of FAST
The payoff
My own experience with this book tells me two things.
First of all (to bend a famous quote), “Deadlines are a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies...”
Without my self-imposed deadlines, you wouldn’t be reading these words. If you think you’re a pretty snappy procrastinator, I assure you, I’m better. I procrastinated for five hours today! Even after I told you yesterday that I shouldn’t do that!
Deadlines are incredibly valuable. So valuable, that I don’t think you should even start a project without one.
But the second thing my experience tells me, is that by giving yourself too narrow a deadline, you cause undue stress. Unless you’ve got a hard deadline from an editor or professor or someone else leaning over your shoulder, make your deadline flexible.
I gave myself a five-week deadline for this book.
I planned three weeks to write (to Focus and Apply), and two weeks to rewrite (to Strengthen and Tweak).
Jeez. I was clueless. It wasn’t anywhere near enough time.
Instead, it took four weeks to Focus and Apply it.
And as I approached the five-week deadline, my nights were sleepless, and my days were filled and worry. And it got worse.
When I started Strengthening (something I had never tried to do on a book before!), I discovered that it took me considerably more time than I expected.
I pushed back my deadline. And I didn’t even set a new date.
I spent three weeks Strengthening and Tweaking.
And now that I’m done, I wouldn’t mind another three weeks, to be honest.
The lesson is simple. Set a deadline. A hard deadline — and really push to get it done. (You’ll never finish, if you don’t.)
But don’t go crazy in the process.
Particularly when you’re just starting out (or writing a style you’re not used to), keep it flexible.
The goal is to train yourself to write faster and faster.
Not to race to an early grave.