Some time ago I was struggling to get any writing done and didn’t know how to get past it. My publishing career wasn’t going well, I had a number of personal issues that were disrupting my focus and writing felt like work rather than the thing that brought me joy. I was basically avoiding my desk because it wasn’t a happy space. The situation was unsustainable and I knew I had to rethink what I was doing. In short, I felt like almost every other writer.

I took a break to just read for a while, as one does in such moments, as reading may be the only acceptable form of procrastination. I happened to reread Atomic Habits by James Clear, and his thoughts on the importance of well-running systems suddenly resonated with me. Clear says goals are great for creating direction but ultimately unachievable if you don’t also have a good system for making progress. Every writer I know will see the wisdom in this.

“When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy,” Clear says. “You can be satisfied anytime your system is running. And a system can be successful in many different forms, not just the one you first envision.”

I realized what I was lacking was a happiness system for my writing, which meant I wasn’t really able to achieve any of my goals because I couldn’t stick to the process properly. So I set about to change that, starting with my desk. The desk in my office was where I had been doing everything — my work for my day job, paying my bills, doomscrolling, checking my email and my writing. So it was a place of constantly conflicted feelings, with endless distractions to my focus. I decided to make it purely a creative space dedicated to my writing. Archaic perhaps, like buying a record player to listen to music, but sometimes there’s value in returning to the old ways. (Although I draw the line at chicken pox parties.)

First, I moved everything not related to my writing out of my office. I now do the work for my day job in a separate room, I keep up with the news on my phone rather than my writing computer, I don’t bother paying bills anymore, and so on.

Once I had cleared my desk of work, I redecorated it with things that made me happy to look at. I’ve long been a Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast (I’m a writer, remember?), so I framed some D&D postcards and put them on my desk. Just looking at them puts me in a good mood. I added a model of a Tintin rocket because Explorers on the Moon sparked my imagination as a child and I’ve never really grown up. My coffee mug coaster is a map from Lord of the Rings. My ReLit Award ring is always handy as a pick-me-up when I’m feeling down. I’m adding little things here and there that spark joy.

Now when I sit at my desk, I’m automatically put into a happy mood by the items on it. That makes me more willing to spend time at my desk, and the more time I spend there the more writing I get done. Sure, everyone else complains I’ve become a hermit — but I’m a happy, productive hermit!

So one of my most important pieces of advice to other writers is to create a happiness system — and start with a happy desk.

If there’s one thing every writer needs, it’s a second brain.

No, I don’t mean a brain in a jar — although I’m sure there are some writers out there who have just such a thing decorating their office. Hey, no judgement from me.

I mean an external system for collecting and organizing all the information in your life — in other words, the things your real brain isn’t that great at remembering. Like editor’s notes and deadlines. In the past maybe that was post-it notes decorating every inch of the walls of your writing space like some mad person arguing with imaginary people — aka a writer. Or perhaps it was something more sane, like a commonplace book. These days, for better or worse, it tends to be an app.

Why do you need a second brain when the whole point of writing is to create something out of your imagination? Because it’s nearly impossible to keep track of every idea and element that goes into creating a written work without it. How many scribbled notes to yourself have you forgotten in a pocket or lost on transit, to be found by some other aspiring writer who will then turn it into a bestseller? How many inspiring articles have you emailed to yourself only to lose them somewhere in the depths of your inbox, where a Lovecraftian AI is slowly using them to achieve sentience? How many times have you forgotten what happens next in the outline of your story when those imaginary people refuse to do what you tell them? Our real brains are great at processing information — oh no, here comes a horde of zombies! — but not so good at retaining it. Cue the second brain.

Thankfully, there are a number of apps out there that are of immense value to writers and other people with more productive lives. I use Notion to create mini-wikis for my writing projects where I collect ideas, outlines, character profiles, settings, general notes, divine/infernal visions and so on. I also use it to organize my reading lists and keep track of my publications — published, pending, in progress, weird monstrosities, etc. Notion has a very simple and clean interface but is infinitely customizable once you get the hang of it, which I am sure to do one day. Other writers use Ulysses or Scrivener, while more generalist apps such as Evernote, Asana and Obsidian can also serve well as second brains (although they lack the literary names of the others I mentioned).

It doesn’t matter what system you use as long as you develop a second brain to help keep yourself organized. Your real brain will thank you once it realizes it no longer has to futilely attempt to keep track of things and can now focus on creating. And procrastinating.

And yes, I originally created this post in my second brain.