11/06/2025

Why Your Writing Practice is Failing

Hint: It’s not about time management

I’ve been writing professionally since 2002; in that time, I've experimented with lots of different strategies to keep myself on track. (I've been a columnist at Fortune and Fast Company, and I am now a contributing writer for The New York TimesOpinion Section, in addition to cohosting Slate's Money podcast, and I’ve been an editor, reporter and opinion writer for a number of other places.)

I also have, shall we say, a fragmented attention span, and my therapist likes to routinely bring up how many women my age have undiagnosed ADHD, which I now take as a not-so-subtle hint. So, I need systems and routines maybe a bit more than the average person; it has taken me a while to find the right ones.

But I stumbled upon my biggest problem with developing a consistent writing practice by accident when I added a couple of components that focused not on the writing itself, but on idea generation and development. Like most professional writers, I take notes and carry a notebook everywhere, and my journalistic background has primed me to capture details and thoughts even when I am not on the clock. That said, there was not much consistency to it for a long time, and I didn't have a process for taking those notes and thoughts and fashioning them into something that might qualify as a good work product, or if I was being really ambitious, art.

Please select this link to read the complete article from Fast Company.