It happens to all of us: you make a beautiful plan, you’re pumped and ready to go. Then life happens, things go sideways, and you suddenly find yourself weeks behind. If you don’t do something drastic, you aren’t going to hit your goals.

What the heck do you do now?

For most of us, our plans need significant adjustment midstream more often than not. The problem is that most people don’t feel comfortable with what to do at that point. Do I give up? Do I pull some all nighters to make up ground?

Many folks either get a bit paralyzed or just do whatever occurs to them first. In both scenarios, people tell me that the result was not satisfying or comfortable - they didn’t feel like they made a sound decision. For many people, it’s a reason that they don’t use planning and execution systems at all.

To help combat this problem, the goals for today’s episode are to help you A) make a good decision about how to revise your plan when things break down and B) how to feel good about that decision.

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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We’re all getting the message every day. Generative AI is changing the world at warp speed. Every week reveals new possibilities for working more efficiently. Nothing will be the same. A robot is going to cook all your hamburgers and fries. No one will have a job within 10 years. And writers will go the way of the dodo.

To that I say: raspberry sound. Humans will always have a place in the loop.

In this episode I:

• Explain my human centric theory of AI
• Discuss the limits of AI and why writers should not fear losing their jobs
• Describe several strategies and provide examples for using AI today to write better, more quickly, all while amplifying your unique voice.
• Introduce you to Tr3v0r, my new custom GPT writing coach buddy
• End with a few tips for using AI safely.

Links:
GYWD: Writing Like a Human Resource Guide
GYWD: AI Tools for Writers Resource Guide
Google Notebook LM
ProWritingAid
GetYourWritingDone.com

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Do any of the following scenarios sound familiar?

• You know you need to do some research for your book, but you have no idea where to start
• You want to write a book about a new topic, or a novel that takes place in a new setting perhaps, but you are so worried that you won’t sound authoritative or convincing enough, so you spend months doing research, never sure whether you’ve done enough
• You’ve just created a great plan, and doing research is in the plan, but when you start doing the research you can’t figure out if it’s helping you get anywhere
• You’re in the middle of your book, but run into a topic that you want or need to know more about. Weeks later you realize you have fallen down a rabbit hole of research and haven’t started writing again.

If you’ve ever found yourself in one of these situations, you’ve fallen into the research trap.

I define the research trap as “The act of conducting unnecessary research or conducting research in an inefficient or ineffective manner.”

The research trap can lead to aggravation. It can make you miss deadlines. It can keep your work from being the best it can be. But maybe worst of all, it can add up to weeks, months, even years, of wasted time.

So, that’s the goal of this episode: understanding the research trap, why people fall into it, and discussing strategies to avoid it.

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Is there a rock in your shoe keeping you from writing?

I don't just mean a garden variety obstacle, I'm talking about a major productivity or dream killer. Is there something that needs to change for you to reach your goals?

In today's episode, we discuss The Rock and the Response. We talk about how the obvious layer of the rock almost hides a more important inner layer of dangerous emotion. We consider how difficult it can be to recognize the real causes behind our rocks.

Then we talk about dealing with rocks. Embracing a strategic mindset is key, as is being honest with yourself and being willing to make necessary tradeoffs. Finally, we discuss finding the courage to confront the rocks in our shoes.

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Everywhere I look I see workshops promising to help you get a fast start to 2024. And that’s great! But here’s the thing: how many times have you or someone you know got off to a quick start on a new writing project but never quite finished it? That’s why this episode is all about Starting to Finish. We'll talk about five common reasons people don't finish their writing and five concrete steps you can take to avoid them.

For more information and tools for the productive writer, visit getyourwritingdone.com

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Do you ever hear yourself saying these sorts of things?
- I don’t have enough time to write
- I don’t have enough energy to keep going to the end
- I am so demoralized at how slow this is going
- I’m losing my enthusiasm for this writing project I’ve been at it so long

If you find yourself in one of these situations, you need to become a master of making slow progress. This idea of slow progress gets very little discussion these days, but I think it deserves a lot more. In today’s episode I define slow progress, talk about why slow progress can be challenging, and outline some strategies for mastering the art of moving slowly toward your goals.

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Did you know that the average person spends just 47 seconds before switching from looking at one screen/window on their computer to looking at another? Or that it takes 25 minutes to regain focus after an interruption? Staying focused in the best of times is a brutal task. Staying focused when life gets crazy is that much harder.

In this episode we'll talk about five strategies for finding focus that all happen before you sit down to write.

Ezra Klein, "Beyond the 'Matrix' Theory of the Mind,"

Gloria Mark, Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Have you ever had one of those periods where you just couldn’t write consistently? Maybe your schedule was too chaotic. Maybe you got super busy at work. Or maybe you found yourself looking at the clock and seeing it was time to write but you wound up finding something else to do? Maybe you were going great guns but then went on vacation and when you came back you found that your momentum was gone and you never got back on track? Or maybe you made plans to get to work early every morning and write for an hour before work but after a couple days you stopped and didn’t start again? If any of these sound familiar, do not feel bad! We have all had trouble showing up. In fact, I think being consistent and building a writing routine that sticks is one of the single biggest challenges facing a lot of writers, especially a routine that can stand the challenges and turbulence of daily living. So today’s episode is all about showing up: why we don’t and what we can do about it. By the end of the show, you’ll have strategies for writing consistently.

The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook is now available at getyourwritingdone.com as well as Amazon and other major online retailers. The workbook is a companion to The 12 Week Year for Writers. It will help you develop a powerful, custom writing routine that fits the way you work.

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Get the Books
The 12 Week Year for Writers
The Weekly Writing Routine Workbook