It’s an easy leap from thinking about maintaining a reader’s momentum to maintaining our own. Writing can be tough. Pulling together one’s initial ideas, research findings, analysis, and/or recommendations into a coherent document can feel intimidating, baffling, and exhausting. Since our to-do list always outstrips our available time, it’s easy to put off writing in favor of more immediately urgent things, especially those urgent things that don’t provoke the same resistance (if you’re like me) that writing does.

These posts are an exploration of strategies for producing the highest-quality writing in the most efficient way. High-quality writing arrived at through the gnashing of teeth is better than mediocre writing, but to me, quality, efficiency, and enjoyment are the goal.

We all have different preferences, hang ups, processes (productive or not), skills, past experiences, and work situations, and I’m trying to think broadly here. I’ve talked with many, many writers about process — what works and what doesn’t. If you have challenges or successes that would be useful for me to relay here, I’d love to hear from you!