Get Everything Done

One thing that has been mentioned from time to time on this blog is “journaling”.

What I’m going to demonstrate here is the writing of an article by the journaling method. This is how it is carried out. We start with typed articles with a keyboard. There is a strict time limit of 10 minutes. In fact it isn’t a time limit. One has to write for 10 minutes, neither more nor less. There must be no pauses for thought. There must be no going back for editing. That doesn’t mean you can’t edit the result for publication, but that editing must take place after one has finished, not while you are still writing.

What subject should you choose? Well, that is a good question. You can either decide on a subject to explore, or just start writing and let the subject find itself. It’s this second method that I am using now. At the moment I am somewhere around the half-way point. Not quite there. But what I am expressing is coming to me as I write without forethought. I have no preconceived ideas about what I should say, or what style I should be expressing it in.

How much will I edit once I’ve finished? Just enough to make it comprehensible. Not so much that it destroys the sense of exploration of one’s mind. What I am writing at the moment is writing itself. So i don’t want to take that experience away by over-editing.

What can this method be used for? Just about anything, I think. You can write about emotions, about ideas, about exploration, as a diary, as recollection of the past, about hopes for the future - of yourself or your town or your family, your country or humanity as a whole. It doesn’t matter. In fact some people have used the technique to write whole novels. I’ve always loved the idea of this tool because it may not be so beautifully crafted as normal writing, but it does seem to get at the essence of things.