I've written before about the 80-20 rule (Pareto's Principle), which says that usually 80% of your results or gains come from only 20% of your efforts. If you can figure out what that 20% is, and do more of it, and cut out some of the low-producing 80%, you will be more successful.
Applying this idea is harder than it sounds, but I had one realization about it recently that might be useful to you, too. This example is about fitness but you'll see how it can apply to writing or anything else as well.
One of my goals is to go to the gym to do some cardio exercise three days a week. Now, deciding what time of day to go is a pretty small part of the process, but in fact I realized that whenever I defer the exercise until the afternoon, there is a much greater chance that I will skip it. By later in the day there are more interruptions, more things have come up that I have to deal with, and it gets harder to motivate myself to leave the desk.
By changing that 20% or less--the decision about when to go--I am successful at going at least 80% more of the time.
If there is something you want to do more of (like writing), but often you don't, what 20% could you change in order to do it more often? Could you change the time? The location? The person/people around you? What do say to yourself or what do you imagine the times you actually do it? The clues are in the process, you just have to find them.
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