How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing

Day-level goals should be concrete, the kind of goals that you can judge if you meet them. Goals starting with phrases like work on, get started, or think about are too mushy.

Get examples of recent funded and unfunded proposals. If you don’t know who to ask, your institution’s grants office can usually get some samples for you.

Keep Track Humans are both frail and forgetful, so you can guess what happens if you don’t write down everyone’s goals. The next week, a certain convenient ignorance descends upon the members

Day-level goals should be concrete, the kind of goals that you can judge if you meet them.

Instead of finding time to write, allot time to write. People who write a lot make a writing schedule and stick to it.

routine is a better friend to them than inspiration”

Each member sets a concrete goal for the next week, such as making an outline, finishing a section of a manuscript, reading a book, or writing 1,000 words. These are tangible—you’ll know if you didn’t do it.

“Clearing the decks” is mental alchemy: We transmute the lead of procrastination into the gold of efficiency.

Picking the right days and times is most of the battle. The actual days and times don’t matter much, as long as they are defensible and biologically realistic.