The Hemingway method for finishing what you start
I’ve been practising the Hemingway method for years. I take a break “while an essential task is still hot.”
“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day when you are writing a novel you will never be stuck. That is the most valuable thing I can tell you so try to remember it,” says Ernest Hemingway.
The technique doesn’t just apply to writing.
I use it for all my deep work.
The idea is to stop when you’re winning. Not when you’re stuck. Not when you’re dragging yourself through the task. Stop when things are in the flow. That way, when you come back, you’re not dreading it. You’re ready. You know what to do next.
That’s the key.
Stop in the middle. Not randomly. Not when you don’t feel like doing it. But when I know what’s next is as exciting as what got you started.
“Finish what we start,” doesn’t apply here.
If you push through until you’re drained, you won’t want to come back. You will dread the next task. You’ll delay it. You might even quit. But if you stop with momentum still in the tank you build trust with yourself.
You will want to return.
That’s the trick.
Hemingway lived by this rule. He applied it to write his books.
“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.”― Ernest Hemingway
If you drain yourself completely, you leave nothing for tomorrow. But if you stop while there’s still more to give, you come back stronger.
This method works because it kills procrastination. You stop at a point where starting again feels easy.
No resistance.
Use it to pace yourself. Knowing when to leave something undone on purpose. So you can come back and finish it.
I live by it. One rule to get more done.
Try it.
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