What Really Works (for me)

[stephanieburgis]

Over at Girls Heart Books, I'm blogging today about the single thing that's helped me most with productivity over the past year...and it's a little embarrassing but, yes, absolutely true. "Bribes for the Win!"

Here's a quick snippet:

...In this mood, all I want to do is sit back, eat bon-bons (what are they, anyway? I don’t know, but they sound

Comments

[pickledginger]

Forget the inner child -- given a choice between discipline and good chocolate, I know which *I* would pick. :-) Hmm. Perhaps I have an inner grown-up, instead?

[stephanieburgis]

I like that way of thinking about it! :)

[deliasherman]

It doesn't have to be food. On a writing retreat in Mexico, we got a whole bag of colored eggs filled with confetti. The bribe was, you got to throw one at the wall and watch it shatter for every goal (which each retreater got to set for herself). Mine was 1000, because, at that point, I'd never actually managed 1000 words in a single day before.

One day, I got to throw 2 eggs at the wall. It was tremendously satisfying.

You remind me I need to set up something like that for myself at home. Because this book isn't going to write itself, and my Inner Nanny is getting a bit burned out.

[stephanieburgis]

Ooh, I really like the idea of those confetti eggs!

And oh, yes. I burn out VERY fast when my own Inner Nanny is in charge...