Write While True Lou Franco
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- Technology
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Write While True is a writing podcast for programmers. Each episode is a writing exercise or prompt. Sit down at a keyboard and cue us up. When the show is over, it's time to write.
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43. Accountability Groups
There's a hole in this process, and we need to fill that right now. This only works if you're doing the lead activities consistently, and if they really do build up to the end goal. It's true that working on the book is intrinsically fun and interesting. And if that's all that happened, I'd probably be okay with it, but I really do want a book in the end.
Write While True Episode 40: Let’s Write a Pamphlet
Write While True Episode 41: The Lead Measure
Write While True Episode 42: Keeping Score
4DX: Applying the Fourth Discipline
Useful Books Community
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42. Keeping Score
As I mentioned in the past two episodes, I'm trying to write a short book, and I want to share the process as I'm going through it. For example, to help me structure my time, I'm using the book The Four Disciplines of Execution.
In the last episode, I shared how I'm applying the second discipline. I defined an activity that I could do every day and a lead measure, a metric of that activity, that I could have as a goal for every week.
The idea is that if I constantly achieve this lead measure, I believe that the larger goal will be achieved. My weekly goal is to spend at least one hour a day on five different days working on the book. It's a goal that resets every week. That way, a bad week doesn't derail me. Every Monday, I have a chance to try to win that week. But I have to remember to do it. Keeping this lead measure top of mind is what the third discipline is about. And that's what I want to talk about next.
Write While True Episode 40: Let’s Write a Pamphlet
Write While True Episode 41: The Lead Measure
How I am applying The Four Disciplines of Execution
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41. The Lead Measure
My wildly important goal is to publish a fifty page book on a topic in my industry by the end of 2024. I defined it using the SMART goal format (S. M. A. R. T.), which means it's specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. This is a good way to define goals, but the issue with SMART goals is that even though you can easily tell if you have reached them, they don't drive day-to-day activities. That's where the 2nd of the four disciplines comes in.
Write While True Episode 40: Let’s Write a Pamphlet
Write While True Episode 4: Make a Schedule
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40. Let's Write a Pamphlet
For season four, which I'm starting right now, my plan is to take you through my process as I try to write a short, focused book. I expect it to be about 50 pages. I call this kind of book a pamphlet.
4DX: Applying the First Discipline
Write While True Episode 13: New Ideas
In Praise of Pamphlets
Generating Podcast Episode Ideas
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39. Dark and Light
The white pastel can draw white on top of the charcoal, so now I can make white marks, which can also be smudged and mixed. It's giving me a range of values I couldn't get before. Throwing white highlights onto a dark drawing is a way of directing attention and makes it more interesting.
Black and white, on a drawing, are the extreme values. If I try to apply this idea to writing, it should also be a juxtaposition of opposite extremes.
A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift
Prompted Morning Pages Journals
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38. Content-free Sentences
I’m reading a book by Stanley Fish called How to Write a Sentence. I found this book by Googling that exact question because I wanted to find anything that might be a fit for what I'm podcasting about this season.
How to Write a Sentence by Stanley Fish
The Tools and Materials of Writing
Write While True Episode 28: Complex Sentences
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Sponsor: Prompted Morning Page Journals
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