In this article I want to share how I changed my book writing process from sprints to tiny drops.

The context that changed everything

I've become a dad. And having a little baby in the house has been a very interesting challenge for my writing process. Indeed, until now I have written all my books in sprints mode. This means, I blocked a week or two of focus, and worked just on the book until it was done. It was hard work. But after two weeks I made some gigantic progress.

When the baby arrived I decided to invest most of my time that I used for freelancing and writing projects for being with the baby. Basically, every morning of the week I'm taking care of our son. And in the afternoon I work for the Salvation Army as an Innovation coach. So as you might notice, there isn't much time left to do so called sprints. 

A crazy goal

Nevertheless I decided that in 2021 I would publish a new book in the series "Service Design Principles". I already published a book with the first hundred principles, and now I'm working on the book "Service Design Principles 101-200". In fact, I just sent in the past days the book to the proofreading. So how did I do it if I didn't work in sprints.

What are drops?

The idea is pretty simple, and it's one that I borrowed from many other authors. Work in small chunks. What I personally call drops. The idea goes as follows:

If every day you add a little drop of water in a bottle, one day it will be full. Adding a little drop doesn't seem much, but doing long enough and you'll see the impact.

Tiago Forte calls this Slow Burn. But the idea is basically the same.

That's the main idea, so let's now see what are the tiny changes in my life that made it possible to stick with this process.

Using daily routines

Since the kid arrived I’ve been using a lot little routines every day to get things done. And for every routine I have a little checklist I follow. I try to wake up before everyone else in the house. I have a routine for that. When the kid naps I have a routine for that. Before going to bed I have a routine too. On all these routines I tried to make a little progress towards this book being published. 
In most routines I had stuff about mental health, cleaning the house, etc. But also tiny drops to get ahed on the book like:

1. Fix one reference in the book

2. Draw one illustration

3. Edit one principle 

Building motivation by counting the progress

When you fill a bottle one drop after the other you don’t see that you are doing progress. So the best way to feel the progress is to count the number of drops you add. 
That’s basically what I did also for the book. Everyday I knew how far I was in the process. For example I told my wife: I have already proofread 30 principles! Even if that day I might have proofread just one. The total is what mattered to me. And it’s really motivating to see that you have already done 30% of the work for this task. 

What’s next?

At the time of writing I’m done with writing, editing and illustrating my next book. The book is sent to the proofreader. As working with drops really worked well I’m gonna continue to do it for the preparation of the launch of the book.

— Written on September 1, 2021