BIP Day 8: Ever struggle to finish a long-term project? Build momentum with these four questions inspired by Ernest Hemingway
When working on a big project, each day's work can feel fraught with risk.
Will I get stuck? Will I remember my place? What exactly will I do next? We end up starting the next day feeling anxious instead of excited.
If you could only build a bridge from today's work to tomorrow's, you'd preserve your momentum.
Ernest Hemingway came up with a solution. He would never end the day's writing until he knew what he was going to write next.
Tiago Forte codified that approach into a method and called it the Hemingway Bridge. Just four questions that allow you to hit the ground running the next time you work on your project. Here they are:
1) What are some next steps?
Like Hemingway, know the next scene before you end work for the day. That way you can start the next work period with a burst of momentum.
2) What is the current status?
Acknowledge where you are now. Do you have something to celebrate? Is something confusing? Do you have questions to answer. Listing them will ensure you get them out of your head so you can work on them.
3) What details might I forget later if not written down?
If you couldn't work on your project for a few days or weeks, what would you need to remember? Write it down. A real-life interruption may happen. This will leave you prepared to return to work afterwards.
4) What's my intention for the next work session?
Sounds similar to 1) but this is closer to a commitment. Of the steps you listed earlier, which do you intend to do next?
During my current build-in-public project, I was starting to get confused as each day bled into the next.
But once I started writing Hemingway Bridges each day, all I had to do was review yesterday's Bridge to discover what to do next.
Here are screenshots of what I got done on Day 8:
