Planning writing can feel pointless.  A lot of us depend on deadlines, caffeine fuelled all-nighters and forgetting how last time we promised we would never do that again.  But for a book or PhD sized project – really anything where the finish line is years away and the work too large to write in a night – that approach is unsustainable.  Probably.  I mean, I’m prepared to give it a go.  But there has to be a better way!

This article is about making the choice between planning your work based on content objectives (five thousand words by Friday, a 12 chapters by December) or duration objectives (20 hours a week, 0800-1200 Monday to Friday).  We are always operating a balance between the time we have, how much we are prepared to invest and how good the work is going to be.  Choosing the right intermediate objectives helps you prioritise the outcomes you want.  So how do we choose the right sort of targets?

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