Joe Swanberg Quotes

It is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time.

I have a hard time with scheduling, and with hunkering down and planning. That's always been a struggle for me.

Plan your work and work your plan.

When I first started writing, I had a very difficult time switching between projects, but now it's not only second-nature, it's indispensable: If I stall on one project, I can switch to another and stay productive.

Any time we have projects that we haven't begun or completed, they drain energy.

I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate-or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my 'ten minutes'. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.

My concentration span is truly that of a gnat. Some people have this ladder, and that's all there is - the ladder. I have the ladder, too, but there's a building around it with scaffolding, and lots of windows for me to peek into. Then suddenly I'll remember, 'Oh, there's the ladder. I should be concentrating on that.'

I tend to write in coffee shops and restaurants with friends of mine because if I'm at home, I get distracted by the television or the cats or my husband, or... you know - all of those things that make it easy to procrastinate.

I'll always be working on five things at once, usually with those documents open at the same time because if I get stuck somewhere I'll jump over to something else. That's how my head has always worked.

I've always got a novel under way, but if I try to work on it every day, exclusively, I falter. So I always keep more than one thing going.

I am a great procrastinator. When the writing is going really well, the laundry piles up.

My mother was a pediatrician, and she kept busy hours. I learned from her you could pack a lot into the day. Every minute had to count, and multitasking was a given.

I discovered that the best thing for me was to be very busy all the time. I can get a lot done, and I can do those tasks well.

I have a short attention span, so when one book isn't working out, I just work on another.

The biggest way to be productive is if you're procrastinating on another more important project.

The habit I've developed is to write in any free half hour I might find.

I'm not a particularly disciplined person in terms of my work habits.

Some of the most productive people in history have been self-confessed 'muck-middens,' as my husband would say: Agatha Christie, Benjamin Franklin and even Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, to name a few.

Either I need an assignment with a strict deadline - like something for a movie or a TV show or whatever - or else I need to create a made-up deadline for myself for my own records. Otherwise, I don't write anything.

I have a short attention span. And when I'm in the middle of one thing, I'm then drawn to the next thing.

I'm mature enough to understand I can find time to do other things without disturbing my focus for basketball.

A lot of people don't feel like doing very much. Or one project is really all they can do at one time. I can have five or six things going at the same time. It doesn't bother me or tire me, but sometimes it does rattle me.

I'm like a big old hen. I can't cluck too long about the egg I've just laid because I've got 5 more inside me pushing to get out.

In effect, dividing your attention means that neither (or none) of the things you're working on is really getting the full effect of your intelligence, and that it in the end takes you longer than it would if you did one thing at a time.

I can multitask very well. But I know exactly when to block off anything coming in from the outside and just stay focused on the film.