Entries by Molly Gage
To Reach a Goal, You Have to Make a Goal
We typically offer suggestions for nuts-and-bolts practicality: Schedule your project! Create a flow chart! Try a cool app! Read a great book! But we don’t typically talk about what this practicality serves. Perhaps surprisingly, it’s not really your “project,” it’s actually your goal. While “goals” are somewhat tainted by association with “objectives,” “targets,” “ambitions,” and […]
Back to Basics: Calendars and Timelines
Although the push for efficient productivity seems to be waning, the desire to discover a new app, method, or model to spur a project to completion will always wax. We’ve read lots of books and implemented lots of models, and—lucky for you!—we’ve discovered the secret. The best way to finish a project is also the […]
When Good Feedback Goes Bad
For big, audience-targeted projects, beta readers can offer helpful feedback: With the right guidance, they can spot strengths, take note of weaknesses, and offer valuable information about a message’s viability (or at least its viability with a member of its target audience). But beta rounds often go bad. From providing too much information, to taking […]
Is Time On Your Side? A Few Good Time Trackers
Persistence of Memory, Dali Productivity trackers are like a mirror on a workday morning after a particularly convivial night: What you see is terrible, but it’s helpful to know what you’re working with. The best tracker is a passive tool that aids your efforts but that doesn’t require much more than a look. RescueTime, for […]
You Are What You Read
There are so, so, so many takes—all the time—about the soul-sucking, mind-melting, brain-breaking perils of online distraction: You don’t use the internet, the internet uses you. Vertical reading is a way to pass the time, not to live in it. The internet is a zero-sum game where online relationships take the place of real-life ones. […]
Cheerleaders and Eyerollers
Big projects need big backers. These aren’t the kind of backers that make giant contributions to your Kickstarter (although those are great, too); these are the backers who will not only contribute to your Kickstarter, but who will also provide enthusiastic support when your project needs it most. The role of cheerleader is frequently derided […]
Talk It Out
Source: CurvaBezier/Adobe Stock When I prepare for phone calls with passionate authors, I like to revisit “How to Conduct Difficult Interviews” from The Open Notebook. I do it not because my authors are difficult (never!), but because the article is so widely applicable. Who hasn’t had a tough conversation with a business partner, boss, team […]
Kickstart Your Heart
You might already know that Kickstarter has a vibrant and delightful publishing category. Illuminated books? Botanical illustrated sketchbooks? Letterpress type specimen books? Yes, please! The site has helped to launch over 45,000 publishing projects and to raise over 156 million dollars. Can it help you? Maybe! Launching a project is no joke—it’s a whole lot […]
A Foreword, a Preface, an Intro, and an Afterword Walk Into a Book…
Well, that’s pretty rare, actually. Although a foreword, a preface, an introduction, and an afterword are all framing elements, they are only sometimes used (and only sometimes read). So what are the differences between a preface, a foreword, and an intro, and what is the point of an afterword? How do you know what your […]