When writing songs took up a huge chunk of my brain, I had a constant flow of new musical and lyrical snippets arising in my consciousness.

In college, I got a microcassette recorder that I would use to record these ideas, which cropped up any time I allowed my brain to have room for them: walking across the quad, in the shower, right before bed, or whenever I picked up an instrument. Then I got a minidisc recorder, and then an iPhone...these days, there is no shortage of methods for recording ideas.

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Nebulous tasks are always the easiest ones to put off.

Even if you have clearly defined what you are going to do (“Write first draft” or “Fill out recommendation form”), there is an ugly amorphousness to certain things on our to-do list. We just don’t know how long they are going to take, and we suspect that it isn’t going to be a fun experience to do them. This one is going to require an uncertain amount of effort, attention, and focus; that one requires us to pull something out of ourselves that we aren’t sure we have. It makes perfect sense to choose something smaller, better defined, or practiced.

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In these pandemic times, there’s little difference between the days for work-at-home types like me.

Sure, once the things get rolling, there are more messages and pings on a weekday, and there is more traffic in my tiny city. But the predawn hours are tranquil; an early Sunday is indistinguishable from an early Monday. Both are dark and still.

So why would my Sunday self be unable to write while my Monday self is capable of it? Why does my Sunday self seek to crawl back into bed?

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I learned how to file papers from David Allen’s Getting Things Done.

It might have been better if I had simply become more effective at throwing things away. Then, I wouldn’t have found myself combing through a box filled with ten-year-old notes and supporting information, all meticulously organized.

On the one hand, it was interesting to see a time capsule of where I was in my work a decade ago — how I saw things and what I was hoping for. But whatever had once seemed precious and memorable and worth saving was gone.

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My process for writing articles is pretty straightforward.

I sit down to write and simply wait for an idea. Within a couple of minutes, an idea appears, and I write.

You could say that’s pretty woo-woo, but I find it to be incredibly practical. Why shouldn’t an idea simply be there when I’m looking for it?

Where else would it be, if it’s not already in my head?

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