Some of my best days in Japan happened between English classes, on a blanket in a park.
I’d met an artist and writer there, and on our free afternoons we’d pack lunch, find a spot under a tree and sketch together for hours. On one of those afternoons she introduced me to Henry Miller and handed me Black Spring. I read it in a few sittings and went looking for everything else he’d written.
Years later I became a copywriter, and that’s when I found out Miller had written down the rules he worked by: eleven short commandments from 1932 and 1933, while he was working on Tropic of Cancer. They’re about focus, routine and getting shit done, which turns out to be most of what copywriting is. I’ve done my damnedest to live by them ever since.
Henry Miller’s Rules for a Productive Workflow
Slightly stolen from Henry Miller’s rules of writing, I use them to guide my day-to-day working:
- Work on one thing at a time until finished.
- Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, and recklessly on the task in hand.
- Work according to program and not according to mood; stop at the appointed time.
- Cement a little everyday, don’t add new fertilizer.
- When you can’t create, you can work.
- Keep human! See people, go places, travel somewhere.
- Work with pleasure only.
- Discard the program if needed — but — go back to it next day.
- Concencrate. Narrow Down. Exclude.
- Work first and foremost. Friends and fun come after.
What do you use to keep yourself on task?
