Making Molehills Out of Mountains
Or, a few ways to break overwhelming tasks into manageable chunks
Hi friends,
Here’s a secret: I haven’t done the dishes in my house in months. In fact, it’s at least possible I haven’t washed a dish in the entire calendar year of 2025 so far. The division of labor in our house, at least roughly, looks like this: my partner does the day-to-day maintenance of dishes and trash and litter box (thank you thank you I love you), we have our amazing housecleaner come every 3 weeks or so for deep cleaning, and I am in charge of the major organizational/clean out part of keeping our lives in order.
I’ve been engaging in a room-by-room anxiety-fueled spring clean out. Until recently, I was strategically avoiding our kitchen, which is a very Gen X/millennial jumble of gadgets and appliances that collect dust, forgoing any fun cooking in exchange for microwaving 568,745 dino-shaped chicken nuggets a week.
Then, I read about a chef who organizes her kitchen based on four categories: food prep, food cooking, food serving, and food storing. This conceptual organization honestly changed my life: the homes make sense to me, and so I put things away instead of just shoving things into drawers. Magic!
The neuroscience of writing well
My sense is that these kinds of organizational strategies actually mirror successful writing practices as well. I’ve come to realize that most of us know how to write—the trick is to persuade our brains to let us do it. I find myself falling back on four neuroscience-ish tidbits to make writing a little bit easier:
your lizard brain is trying to protect you from being eaten by a tiger;
your brain works better with discrete, manageable chunks (of information, tasks, time, etc);
writing and executive planning should be tasks that happen separately;
brains are delightfully plastic—we can unlearn thought patterns that don’t serve us and re-learn thought patterns that do!
Rules 1 and 4 are for another time, but I have a few ways we can use 2 and 3 to our advantage.
Before I start: The answer also might be that you need to rest and do nothing, and that is also okay! I’m writing this because I’ve had a lot of people ask me how they could write through the chaos—this is not an advocacy of doing so, but just some ideas if you’re compelled to try.
Overwhelm 1: Beginning a new project: Four buckets
When you’re starting a new project—a book project, a research program, whatever—it can often feel like you’re drinking out of a fire hose. There are at least four things that need to be happening all at once.
—> Macrolevel organizational work (argument/throughline/chapter structure)
—> State of the literature (what conversations are you joining and how are you contributing to them)
—> What you know/think/ believe (why you are the one writing this book/your voice as an expert)
—> Data work (what are you analyzing/using as evidence)
The problem is, all four of these need to advance more-or-less in tandem, and those are hard to do at the same time. Enter rule 2: you need to create chunks. One way to do this is to have four separate files, one called “outline,” one called “lit,” one called “my thoughts” and one called “data,” and you begin building the foundation for the book by working on one at a time. You work on the outline until you get stuck, and then you go into the literature. You read until you have a sense of how you’re positioning yourself in broader debates/conversations, and then you write about that in “my thoughts.” You run out of novel things you’re going to say, you start working on data collection. And then you cycle back around.
Ways to adapt: If this feels too organic, try to assign different weeks instead:
Week 1: Organizational Work
Week 2: Literature Work
Week 3: Data Work
Week 4: Synthesis/Analysis Work
Week 5: Organizational Work…
You can also try to do the part where you write about what you think as morning pages, where you write by hand.
Why this works: It’s like my kitchen: you’re assembling all of the components of the project separately before you start to integrate them together. You’re not trying to cook while you’re still grocery shopping: you’re assembling the component parts.
Overwhelm 2: The zombie project
In a perfect world, we’d all touch every project every day. But that world doesn’t exist, and you go days and weeks without opening the file, and then even thinking about the project fills you with dread. You designate time for the project, but then find unanswered emails that suddenly feel urgent, and write those instead.
A solution: spend executive planning time, not writing time, with the project. Enter rule 3. Find a two-hour block of time, and designate it for managing the project. If it helps, write yourself a little agenda. Print out the paper, any notes you have, etc. Read the paper with curiosity (“damn…past me was actually smart!”) Read those reviewer comments, put them into a spreadsheet, and then close that doc for good. By the end of the meeting, have a two-tier to-do list. A to-do list of global things (fix references, integrate theory x into chapter 2 and 3, etc), and then line-item changes (I like to just put these in comments).
One really important habit that can keep this executive planning going: whenever you’re writing, stop 10-15 minutes before you’re writing session ends, and leave yourself breadcrumbs. It can be as simple as this:
Dear Kelly,On 2/27 you worked on x, y, z. Next writing session, logical next steps would be a, b, c or d, e, f.
Love,
Kelly
Why this works: It separates the planning from the writing. It means that you don’t have to worry about actual writing as you dip your toe back in, and you can then sit down to write and just pick something off of your to-do list.
Overwhelm 3: The world is hard and so is writing
It’s all just…a lot right now. I am angry and exhausted and quite scared all of the time in a way that puts 2017 in pretty sharp perspective. I know that writing is one of the things that helps with these feelings. I like putting words into the world, organizing my thoughts on paper, etc. But when I’m tired it feels really hard to make myself write.
Enter the choice board. Because I am a child, this truly works for me. Once you have a beautiful to-do list assembled, classify those tasks as “A,” “B,” and “C.”
“A” tasks are hard. They’re meaty. They’re complex. They need a block of time and your full attention.
“C” tasks are quick and easy, and often boring. Checking citations, searching the document for all of the times you use “moreover” and omitting them, etc. These can be done in front of the tv or at soccer games, and they can also be done by a tired brain.
“B” tasks are somewhere in between. They take some time and attention but not as much.
So now that you’ve labeled your to-do list, two things are true: first, you can match tasks to your ideal writing time. If you are a morning person, and have two hours with no meetings one Wednesday morning, don’t check your email! don’t grade! don’t check citations! Use that A-time for A-level tasks.
Choice boards short circuit the “I don’t want to” voice in my head. If I have an hour for writing, I have a list of options I can choose from—but I have to do one of them.
So my internal monologue goes more like this:
Real me: “Ugh I’m too tired for thinking.”
Unpleasantly chirpy mental side kick: `”That’s cool, you can do the C-level stuff that’s been floating around. OR you can work on the way more fun but harder A-level stuff. It all has to be done, so decide what you want to do today!”Real me: “Ugggggh fine.”
Why this works: It works because it forces you to evaluate the chunks you’ve created, and align them with other resources: your time and your mental energy.
That’s what I got this week—write all of the things, or at least organize your kitchen.
xoxo,
Kelly
PS—thanks for all of your feedback last week about the newsletter article. I hope you write one, if you want to! I have one more to add—Sarah Mosseri’s Work Fail, “A look at the chaos, absurdities, and everyday struggles of work life in the U.S.” If you think that’s exciting, just wait til you read her book Trust Fall, out this October from UC Press!
What’s Going on Around Here
France 2025: An exciting (and fleeting!) announcement: Mirya and I are hosting a very small writing retreat in the wine country in France from July 1-6, 2025. It’s so small we didn’t even advertise it, but—we just had one spot become available. If you’re interested, email me for details. It will be magical, and give you something to dream about as you trudge through the next few months.
ApWriMo 2025! April 1-11, with a mini writing retreat April 4. You know about AcWriMo—experience our second (third?) annual ApWriMo. Write every day for 10 days, take a break, feel great about the summer starting. Register here, and I’ll send more details. Free!
So You Want to Write A Book?: Two spots left! A unique hybrid workshop dedicated to supporting writers throughout their book writing journey. Start with a new cohort in May! Enjoy discounted registration/early bird pricing through February 15. This year’s cohort just had our January meeting, and it was SO MUCH FUN! Such smart people doing cool projects. Come join us in May! More info here, Register here
Editing: I’m accepting new projects to edit in 2025! My editing calendar fills up three-to-six months in advance, so if you have something you’re hoping to get edited, this is a great time to chat about it.
You can see all of what we’re doing in 2025 here.