First, write. Then, edit. And finally, ship.

There are 3 phases to any task: Writing, Editing, and Shipping.

We tend to procrastinate when we try to do all three at the same time. The three stages need different areas of our brain to work and hence need to be done separately.

The writing phase or thrashing (as Seth Godin calls it) is all about getting the ideas in our minds onto paper. Nothing is off limits, no editing is needed.

It's very difficult to edit things in our minds. But once they are on paper, we can switch gears and move to the next stage.

The editing phase is where our pre-frontal cortex comes into play and scrutinises, structures and eliminates stuff from our writing. This is where we dot the i's and cross the t's.

And shipping the task is a different ball game altogether. The shipping phase is where the amygdala is active. This is where fear drives us to procrastinate.

But when we have done the writing and editing with intent, we are able to convince the brain that no harm will be done from shipping the work.

When we break any task into these 3 stages, we make our workflow less stressful and more likely to be done.

If you find the blog useful, please forward it to a friend. Thanks!