I started reading time and project management books a few years back, when it became apparent that my ability to manage my studies was fairly limited. I ramped up my reading in 2011 when I found myself working in an organisation with multiple people for the first time, since I was pretty much used to working on my own or in small groups. Over the years I’ve tried a bunch of systems and kept stuff from each of them, but this list collects together three of the quick-and-dirty time management hacks that have been particularly useful to me as a writer. All are part of larger, more complex systems that have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I am pretty ruthless about keeping the things that work for me and searching for new options when something doesn’t. HACK ONE: PRIORITISE THE TASKS THAT UNLOCK OTHER PEOPLE’S CAPACITY TO WORK ON YOUR BEHALF I picked this one up from Dan Charnas incredible book about chefs, time management, and mise-en-place, Work Clean, and it remains the advice I turn to every time I found myself paralysed by indecision about what needs to come next. One of the base-lines of Charnas’ approach is simple:

I’m reading a book on social anxiety, because I believe in knowing your enemy. I wrote three different versions of this blog post and deleted them all, because sometimes trying to write about anxiety is enough to trigger my damn anxiety on its own. For all that it’s hailed as a solitary profession, the anxiety I feel about writing certain things is inherently social. It’s the fear that one’s secrets will be revealed, that the things you do will invite harsh judgement that is terrifying correct; you are actually stupid, or unlovable, or worthless, and now the con you’ve played thus far has been revealed for the sham it is. Society anxiety tells you it’s better to hide, or avoid the situation, rather than risk such exposure. Writing invites people to judge you. It hangs your ass out there for posterity, which means your mistakes and shortcomings can be rediscovered long after you left them behind. You may draft alone, just you and the keyboard, but writing only comes alive once other people read it. Opening yourself up to other people’s judgement is part and parcel of the gig. The vast majority of the writing tasks that set of my

The Dancing Monkey 2016 request continues, with a topic that is near and dear to my heart: THE UNENVIABLE HELL OF A BAD BREAKFAST I am old enough to remember a time when Australia wasn’t a breakfast culture. ‘Course, I am old enough to remember a time when the arrival of McDonalds upon our shores was a big deal, and a time when a cappuccino was a fancy-ass coffee. We’ve grown up, in the last thirty years or so, and somewhere along the line we became the folks who are all about our goddamn breakfast. Try to get a group of friends together for dinner, in Australia, and you will have an endless array of maybes and alternate dates, everyone hedging their bets. Break out: “Meet me for breaky somewhere?” BOOM. Everyone is all fucking in. It helps that our cafes got really good at breakfast and coffee over the last twenty years. I can think of three cafes within walking distance of my house that will provide a kick-ass breakfast, and I don’t live in a particularly cafe-rich suburb of Brisbane. These are places that take goddamn pride in their breakfast menu. Places for whom simple staples like bacon and eggs or