Each sliver was placed in a plain manila folder that corresponded to its story component. The result was a stack of folders, each dedicated to a single subject, filled with scraps of paper that collectively contained every relevant fact, quote, or observation.

To make sense of this collection, he would code each section with a short description in the margin, indicating the relevant story component it covered. A standard long-form2 article might include notes on around thirty different components.

As he explained in Draft No. 4, he would begin by copying all of his observations from his notebooks, and transcribing all of his tape-recorded interviews, onto fresh pages, pounded out on an Underwood 5 manual typewriter.

There are few things we value more than the esteem of our fellow humans.

This spare time strategy, of course, is not a sustainable way to work in the long term. Sacrificing too many of your leisure hours to extra work can violate both of the first two principles of slow productivity.

temporarily dedicating significant amounts of free time to the project in question. The

Give yourself enough time to produce something great, but not unlimited time. Focus on creating something good enough to catch the attention of those whose taste you care about, but relieve yourself of the need to forge a masterpiece.

START YOUR OWN INKLINGS

Understand your own field, to be sure, but also focus on what’s great about other domains.