Toolkit: Writing Workflow Management

As if doing our writing and research and admin duties isn’t enough, we’re often told that the key to doing them with finesse and no stress is to find the right workflow. Turn your work into workflow and then you’ll have no problems getting it done.

There’s some value in that — particularly the emphasis on creating a process in which you do your work, according to how you work and what you need — as long as workflow remains a set of strategies and planning tools that assist your work and not work in itself.

If it was that easy, you probably wouldn’t be reading a post about workflow management! So here are 5 tips for breaking up your looming work into workable workflow. And one exercise to try if the list doesn’t do it for you.

These are, of course, just a few options for ways to create flexible, sustainable, and responsive workflow plans that will help you not get lost in the size and depth of your writing, revisions, or strategizing. Working one-on-one with a development editor or writing coach can help you target strategies designed for your needs and keep you accountable, if you could use that company. And we’re always here, happy to help!

Five things you could try, in a handy list format

1. Create a realistic, consistent baseline of work per session, and schedule it out ahead of time. Today’s exercise gives one way to approach this breakdown.

Don’t overwork or ask too much of yourself; you might get something done in a burst of pressure, but it will sap your ability to come back fresh (or as fresh as possible) for your next work session.

When possible, work until you have hit your target and then stop. Either that means leaving the project entirely for the day or turning to another aspect — maybe reading a new source, researching a detail, or even doing a task that you find soothing.

But really, unless you’re on a roll and really want to keep going, use this schedule to regulate your ambition and just stop. Honestly, it’s one of most efficient ways of keeping you capable of engaging in the longer run without being swallowed up by the enormity of the process.

2. Work in chunks. Once you’ve figured out your schedule, break that up further. If you’ve set yourself one week to work through a chapter, break that chapter up — maybe into its different sections. And consider each one a different chunk you will approach. Work within that chunk and then move to another one after. Once you’ve done the smaller-focused work, read it in full and work again across the larger arc, this time focused on the overall flow and transition.

But working first in smaller parts will make it less overwhelming and will enable you to write and think at the more granular level that readers need. And that you probably need too, as the writer but it’s so easy to lose perspective of. Creating these smaller, contained work elements will make it easier to dip in and out without losing focus, or a sense of what is actually getting done.

You could also choose to chunk things by keywords or a text or event you work on across the manuscript. Maybe you have one key concept that you use three times in your text, each time a little differently. You could make one chunk focusing on that concept and then break that down even more, to three chunks of its own. Do each separately (and often not in the order they present (see #3), and then look at them together and assess.

Chunking things creates discrete, clear, workable units that can help you maximize your time, especially when you can only carve out shorter work sessions among other work. And there’s nothing saying that you have to stay within one project if you, like most people, have many going at once. Chunk them all out and then see how you could switch between them.

You don’t have to do everything at once, and it’s counterproductive to try to hold it all in your mind. Give yourself a break: compartmentalize, make lists, and then you can be responsible for less at once while still keeping the larger scope in mind.

3. Jump around. Just because our finished products are beautifully linear in their argumentation and developing structure doesn’t mean that our writing process has to be. And often, trying to work linearly will hamper our ability to think things out.

If you were working in one section yesterday or last week but when you come back to the writing, it’s not talking to you while another part might be, leave yourself a note in the old section about where you were heading and then move to the part that you are actively engaging with.

Inspiration is wildly overrated, but sometimes it does hit, often somewhere else in the manuscript, and we should follow it when we can. More often, though, when you get an urge to jump sections, or when a previously fruitful section dries up, it’s an indication that you need to work out another element of your argument before you can go back to the previous part. Each part is connected, so you’re not wasting time by switching.

If you aren’t feeling a pull to another part of the manuscript but it’s feeling like a massive soul suck to stay in the part you’ve been in, ask yourself what part is more approachable right now or do a free write to see what the stumbling block is. Often you’ll find that thing in another part of the manuscript and you can then jump there and work on that. Or if you need to, switch tasks entirely.

Don’t require so much consistency of yourself that it becomes a block. Nothing good comes from that.

4. Identify similar elements and do them together. No matter how sophisticated and exciting the project or unusual the argument, each piece of writing has to do some basic, establishing things, and often a few times across the text. These are not difficult, thought-provoking elements to work on, but they have to be there. So one thing you can do is look for them, make a list, and then work through your list one by one. Doing the same thing repeatedly makes it more mechanical and will speed up that element. It also can help you start formulating connections across the piece, or show you more what you’re thinking or trying to argue.

This has always seemed to me to be the logic behind annotated bibliographies: as you summarize the work, you are also positioning it within your own personal frame, and you’re creating already-written textual summaries that you can plop into your text later. And of course, they’re helpful for other work in the future, reminding you what in the world was even in that piece.

Within your project at hand, repeating elements that might benefit from group work include glosses of basic terms, summaries of studies, potted descriptions of plots or book arguments, and basic factual information, names, or dates across the text. I find this approach especially useful for case studies. No matter what you do with them, each case study will need to be explained to readers at the most basic level: what it is, who they are, what their history is, how they work, and what interest they spark in you and why.

This is work that has to be done, and it’s often the stuff that we skip over to get to the cool parts. Most of the time, though, we can’t unpick and explain the cool parts until we’ve worked through the basic stuff, and given readers that information. So it’s a great thing to start with or move to when you’re looking for a way in. It’s never a waste of time.

5. Be flexible with yourself. Rank the tasks from most basic to most complicated and choose what you work on according on your own resources that day. This is different for each person, and honestly each project, but being able to match your energy and brain space to a type of task, or project, and working on that will help relieve overwhelm. And you will also know what it makes more sense to turn to when you show up to work with lots of energy and excitement. This is also a useful way to approach working in chunks (#2) and maximize small amounts of time you might have at hand.

I do a lot of citation and bibliography work for authors, and while it is detailed, it’s also pretty mechanical. It’s better done in small chunks over time, so it can be the project of the day when I’m tired or have been thinking too hard about something else, or when I don’t have the bandwidth for big-picture thought, or when I only have an abbreviated amount of time that day. And then I know I’ve got a tedious thing underway, which can also take the pressure off the rest of everything.

Other low energy tasks I mark out include formatting, searching for title and section parallelism, creating a manuscript chart and checking balance and keywords across the text (see a previous toolkit for how to do that), or going back to a part of the manuscript that I feel an affinity for and working in that. And when all of that seems too much, I’ll turn to admin tasks and get those off my plate.

One way you could try it, in exercise format

Here’s one way to approach creating a workable, flexible, humane schedule that still allows for some of the contingencies of life and maybe a little fun on the side (see #1).

Step 1: Work backward from the deadline.

And if you don’t have a set deadline, make one. Look at your calendar and count how many days are between now and then, and then count how many days are realistic working days. Hint: those should not be the same. Make sure to try to keep rest days for yourself, or days when you work on other things (in addition to rest days).

The most humane and realistic schedule not only builds in some rest but is designed around it. Also, if things get too much, you can use those rest days to supplement, particularly if you end up needing to take time off on other days. This should be a last resort, not a habit. I think of it as seam allowance in a garment; it’s there if you need it, but ideally you don’t want to.

Step 2: Evaluate the scope of the project.

How long is it? How much work do you need to do? Be realistic again; think back to similar projects and remember accurately how long it takes you to do such work and count all elements of the project. Your number here could be in pages or perhaps hours of work, whatever works best.

Step 3: Divide the number you came up with in Step 2 by the amount of days you found in Step 1.

This is how much of the project you need to accomplish each working day. Remember that you should have rest days, which can also be used if it ends up taking longer than you anticipate.

Step 4: Mark that number on each working day, in a calendar or time/project tracking app.

Break down the project into large chunks and mark them off across the days. So if you need to work on chapter 1, see how many pages chapter 1 is and how many days you’ll need to assign for it, and then choose a corresponding block on the calendar. Even if you have to move stuff around, breaking it down this way shows you easily how long you’ll be working on something, which can help you negotiate time when you’re in the material. Because things will shift, and you’ll be able to shift more easily with it.

Step 5: Get going. Evaluate as you go along to see if your numbers match the reality.

Sometimes they won’t and you’ll have to adjust the schedule, either all of it or a section. Parts will go faster than you anticipated, and parts will take longer. You’ll gain and lose time, and you’ll be able to see how you need to change the plan in response. Make sure that, when possible, your change gives you more time off, rather than asks to you squeeze in yet another thing. Time away is also part of writing or working, and one we can’t skip without doing harm, to us and our work.

No matter what happens, don’t beat yourself up. We are people, and we have lives that are not our writing, even if it is hard to remember that in the middle of it all. Ultimately the best way to make your work and workflow into a nondestructive — and perhaps even rewarding, engaging, and enlivening — part of your life is to give yourself grace to live that life, and all it entails, first. When you need to, or when you want to. Your writing and work will always be there, waiting for you, for better or worse. Let’s make it better.