Once you have all your writing goals in one place, it’s time to pick one and get writing. The world’s oldest productivity advice—after “construct a sundial and Gregorian calendar”—is to break your big, unwieldy goals into tiny, tractable ones. A goal like “turn my dissertation into a book” is too large and lumpy to guide your day-in, day-out work. At the start of your writing period, after shooing the bats away, take a couple moments to think about what you want to accomplish that day. Day-level goals should be concrete, the kind of goals that you can judge if you meet them.
