A Psychological Hack for Writing Long Pieces

If you need to work on a large piece such as an essay, report, novel, or long blog post, sometimes it can be tough to summon the motivation to get going, or even to start back up after a piece has sat for a while.

So here’s a cool little psychological hack: Just open the document.

That's it!

It's super easy, almost effortless! Find your favorite document writing program and open it up. This takes mere seconds.

Now you're going to tell yourself, “Since the document is open, I will write one sentence.”

One sentence. It’s like one push-up: so easy you’d feel pathetic if you wimped out.

Next tell yourself, “I will write just one more sentence."

Then, "I'll just go ahead and finish this one paragraph.”

… and so on.

After several minutes your initial and natural reluctance to get started will have vanished, and you’ll be writing! Chances are you’ll get a heck of a lot more done than if you told yourself at the beginning, “I will write for one hour.”

And if you happen to give in after the one paragraph? Baby you still did fantastically! Because, after all, you had only initially committed to opening a document.