All the Time I Need? Writing a Book on Schedule

How to Write an Entire Book Using This One Weird Trick! Plus, an Update on My Latest Project

As many of you know I’m writing a book. It’s about books, actually—specifically the historical role of books as an information technology. I thought I’d provide an update about that process, along with a useful framework for thinking about large-scale goals and projects. After all, how do you actually finish writing a book?

Scholar at his desk. Detail from painting by Rembrandt, 1631.

What’s a Deadline?

A book can present a big and daunting prospect. The ideation, research, writing, and editing consume a lot of oxygen, burn gobs of calories, and snarf up more time than anyone can reasonably anticipate. As I detail here, I began work on this book more than ten years ago. It took years and years to digest enough of the research to adequately develop my argument.

Then, several months ago my agent Andrew Wolgemuth contacted Jake Bonar at Prometheus. Jake loved the book proposal. Suddenly, I had a contract—and a real deadline. And it wasn’t another decade away, either. It was only nine months! How could I land this plane, especially, since Jake wanted a longer book than I originally envisioned? My proposed outline would have produced a final manuscript of about 60,000 words. Great, said Jake: But could you make it 80,000?

Yes, I could—enjoyably even. But still, nine months! How would I manage it?

The first thing I did was develop a simple schedule. I spread out the unwritten chapters against the available months. Good news: I could see my way to completion with the available time. It was technically possible. But I also knew there would be an emotional and motivational aspect to this challenge, and how would I handle that?

Deadlines can be motivating all on their own. When someone asked Duke Ellington about the time he needed to complete a piece of music, he said, “I don’t need time. I need a deadline!” But deadlines aren’t enough, as anyone who’s read Douglas Adams can testify. “I love deadlines,” he said. “I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” Nothing gives professional editors heart palpitations like hearing that. When I was an acquisitions editor at Thomas Nelson I signed a couple books I bet the authors still haven’t delivered. I still get anxious thinking about it.

The problem is that’s it’s easy to lose your way in the middle of a journey. Writers sometimes start strong but lose steam halfway through. Then it’s a struggle all the way to the end. But what if you could gather steam as you go? What if the final stretch felt like rolling down hill?

Enter Ayelet Fishbach and the small area principle.

The Small Area Principle

Fishbach, a psychology professor at the University of Chicago, specializes in goal achievement. I’ve consulted her research for years at Full Focus, and one of my favorite insights from her work is what she calls the "small area principle." What is it?

When you conceive of a project along a timeline with a beginning, middle, and end, there are various ways to approach the work. Some approaches can boost your motivation; others can sap it. For instance, if you're just starting, it’s unwise to focus on how far you still have to go—it can feel daunting and demoralizing. Instead, focus on what you’ve accomplished so far; you’re making progress! On the other hand, if you’re past the midpoint, don’t look back and become complacent. Focus on how little you have left, and use that momentum to carry you to the finish.

The key is to focus on the smallest area between the beginning and the end, depending on where you are in the pursuit of your goal.

Ayelet Fishbach’s small area principle, as scribbled by yours truly.

“At the beginning of a goal,” says Fishbach in Get It Done: Surprising Lessons from the Science of Motivation,

the proportional impact of your next action will appear larger if you pay attention to what you've done so far (the small area) than if you focus on what you still have to do (the large area). Beyond the midpoint of goal pursuit, the proportional impact of your next action will appear larger when you look at remaining progress (the small area than when you look at completed progress (the large area).

It’s easier to gin up and maintain motivation when your next action will make a meaningful difference to achievement of the goal—and that perspective is affected by what you focus on. The completion of a book offers a perfect project to see this principle in action. And what better book to demonstrate the point than my own?

My book has seventeen full chapters and sixteen sidebars, which are like mini chapters. After I signed the contract in April, I had ten of those chapters done, a start on chapter 11, and none of the sidebars. I’ve now finished fifteen of those chapters and three of the sidebars. At this rate, I’ll whoosh by the deadline instead of the other way around; worst case, I’ll hit it.

But I got off to a rough start.

Bummer Beginning

The book has three main sections of five chapters each. Part 1 lays the foundation, explaining the technology of the book, how it works, and why it’s been so essential for the growth of civilization and societal evolution. I look at Gilgamesh and Ashurbanipal, Moses and Nehemiah, Aristophanes and Socrates, the materials of book production, the nature of writing, the functions of texts, and more. I mostly finished researching and writing these chapters in 2020 and 2021.

Part 2 traces the evolution of books through figures such as St. Paul, Eusebius, Charlemagne, and down the centuries to Machiavelli, Erasmus, and Montaigne. I cover the transition from scrolls to codices, reproduction of books in medieval scriptoria, the rise of humanism, and finally the challenges posed by printing, both in terms of managing unruly information and managing unruly people. When the contract came through in April, I had four of these five finished and a start on the fifth.

Part 3 explores the transformative impact of books on society, everything from science to the founding of America, from the influence of fiction to the rise of the Internet. One chapter covers the way African Americans have used literacy and literature to carve out a place for themselves in American society. When I got started in April, I thought I would start there. I had already done tons of research and imagined it would be a straightforward chapter to write. It wasn’t.

As I began, a few parts of the chapter came easily enough, but then I ran aground. I had too much material and none of it really cohered the way it needed to. I’ve written and edited long enough to know that if you just stay in the material a logic will emerge that will provide a plan for the chapter. But after two weeks that wasn’t happening—worse, I was getting demoralized and I was eating up time. I hoped for quick win; instead, I hit quicksand.

Thinking of the small area principle, it would be demotivating to look ahead to all the work left to accomplish. But I couldn’t really look back a what I’d done either because I was stuck on the starting blocks. At the end of April, I decided to put the chapter aside lest I lose momentum entirely.

Gaining Momentum

I still had one chapter to write from Part 2, but I had a lot of catch-up work to do on the research for that chapter—enough that I initially thought it wouldn’t be the best chapter to start with. Then again, my “easy” chapter hadn’t been so easy either. So, beginning in May, I went back to the last incomplete chapter and started there.

It took the full month, but it came together. So did my chapter in June on the book’s role in the evolution of science—same with July and the chapter on the American founders and their reliance on books.

That brought me to August. As far as the outline was concerned, I was back with my African American lit chapter. But now I had some real momentum. I could look back and see three chapters under my belt with four left to go, plus the sidebars. I dove in and finished by the end of the month as planned and hoped.

Then in September, I moved on to a chapter about fiction. I ran a week long on that one, but completed it almost on schedule. But here’s what’s cool: With that one done, I’ve got just two full chapters left to go. I’m done looking back, and using the small area principle, I’m focused on how little there is left. Even with the sidebars, it feels downhill from where I’m currently standing.

Where does that leave me now?

Scholar still at his desk.

Final Stretch

I decided to use October as a month to review the research for my next chapter, focusing on the rise of the internet, while also making progress on a few sidebars. I’ve got three of sixteen done. I completed an important one yesterday, which offers a valuable lesson.

The small area principle is fractal—you can break a project into smaller parts, applying the principle to each section and reaping the benefits. For instance, I’m now on the home stretch with my main chapters, while just starting with the sidebars. By applying the small area principle to both, I’m leveraging the motivation that comes from steady progress in both parts of the project relative to the small area of each.

Best news of all? Jake, I’m on track to hit that deadline.

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Before you go . . .

Book Deal? Done. Now I’ve Got 9 Months to Finish Writing