This week: Track your writing

As you may know by now, I argue that writing is the chief value-producing activity in this economy.  But that may or may not be true for you.

This week, keep an informal log of the writing you do, and the time you spend on doing it. Track both formal and informal writing, on paper and on screen. Include the time you spend thinking about the writing you have to do, the time you spend planning, the time you spend drafting, and the time you spend revising.

This time next week, analyze the log. How much of your time is spent on writing? How much on planning, drafting, revising? How much on various kinds of written products: notes, e-mail messages, reports? How productive was that time? How could you make it more productive?

Then please post your results as comments on this blog, or send them to me by e-mail--in which case, I'll keep your name confidential.

Comments

[david william peace]

I pretty much count the number of words in my esssays (cataloged as being written on the same subject) and write the number on my calender. Six days ago, I told myself to write a 500 word essay on the same subject for the next 30 days. This weekend I wirote 2 essays (over 500 words per day). It's breathing. I have a hard time not doing it.

[Dwayne Phillips]

I have kept a work log for, oh wow, 20 years. In it I write the date and what I did that date. I track the number of hours each project (article, book, etc) takes. I haven't broken it down into the finer categories you suggest. I don't know if I have the energy for that much precision.