Thread by @jteevan

We've published a lot on #microproductivity (see: teevan.org/publications/s…). But while I keep meaning to extract the practical tips from our findings, I never seem to get around to it. Time to microtask the process! Pls help me out by sharing your own micro-writing tips. @iqbal_st

https://twitter.com/yoshikivb/status/1331793149308506112

#microwriting tip: Make it easy to get started writing or editing by not expecting too much of yourself. Commit to doing just one simple thing. E.g.: Creating a doc and writing down one idea. Responding to just one comment. Often actually opening up the doc is half the battle!

#microwriting tip: Before taking a break, figure out what the first thing you'll do when you return. Set a trigger in your break (e.g., "before I leave Twitter to go browse another site") and revisit that thing when you hit the trigger. Repeat if you want a longer break.

#microwriting tip: Bring the "wisdom of the crowd" to your own writing by creating an internal crowd. Change your context to bring in new perspectives. Write an idea down now, then revisit it in an hour. Revisit it from a different room. Or while imaging yourself as someone else.

#microwriting tip: Intentionally put your writing down sometimes and switch your focus to other things. An emotion-centric internal dialogue can help you wrap up a writing session. Ask yourself: "How do I feel about the writing I just did? How do I want to feel?"

#microwriting tip: Don't worry about doing the same writing sub-task multiple times. Having a hard time coming up with a concluding sentence? Write five! Each version is easy because it doesn't feel too monumental, and once you have five versions it's easy to choose a favorite.

#microwriting tip: Separate capturing ideas from organizing them. Make a long list everything that comes to mind related to what you are writing about. Use your favorite capture method (email yourself? carry a notebook?) to continue to add ideas to that list while out and about.

#microwriting tip: Q: If you have a bunch of ideas written down that you want to weave into a narrative, can you actually create that narrative via microtasks? A: You bet! Step 1: Create a set of tags. Step 2: Tag the ideas. Step 3: Order the tags.

Given tagged ideas, writing is formulaic: Just go through the tags in order. For each tag, write text that uses the ideas with that tag. If an idea is associated with >1 tag, write about it when you first come to it and cross it off the later tag's list, or leave it for later.

But: How to create the tags!? Take an idea, all on its own, and write down whatever keywords come to mind. Do this for a bunch of ideas, returning to some multiple times to add new keywords. Then look at the set of keywords you came up with. Dedupe & merge to create your tags.

#microwriting tip: When in the flow, stay there! If something is hard to say well, leave yourself a note in the text ("describe better") and KEEP WRITING. Avoid the temptation to look something up in email or on the web - you might not come back. Just leave a note ("add figure").

#microwriting tip: The notes you leave yourself when writing are self-created microtasks. Return to them if you just have a minute for writing but still want to make progress. Or use them to help you get back in the flow. Some you can even pull out of the doc to do in isolation.

#microwriting tip: Tag the notes you leave yourself in your text, and, before publishing anything, search for that tag to make sure you addressed everything. I use "TODO:" Another convention is "tk" since few English words use that letter combination (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_come_(…).

#microwriting tip: Start with tasks that require minimal cognitive load. Fuss with formatting. Get rid of widows and orphans. You'll swap in the context you need to do harder tasks in the process. (via @jeffbigham, supported by research we did with @Carryveggies)