From Research Design: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods Approaches by John W. Creswell, 3rd edition, page 80-81:
Establish the discipline or habit of writing in a regular and continuous way on your proposal. Although setting aside a completed draft of the proposal for a time may provide some perspective to review your work before final polishing, a start-and-stop process of writing often disrupts the flow of work. It may turn a well-meaning researcher into what I call a weekend writer, an individual who only has time for working on research on weekends after all the "important" work of the week has been accomplished. Continual work on the proposal is writing something each day or at least being engaged daily in the process of thinking, collecting information, and reviewing that goes into manuscript and proposal production.
Select a time of day to work that is best for you, then use discipline to write at this time each day. Choose a place free of distractions. Boice (1990, pp. 77-8) offers ideas about establishing good writing habits:
- With the aid of the priority principle, make writing a daily activity, regardless of mood, regardless of readiness to write.
- If you feel you do not have time for regular writing, begin by charting your daily activities for a week or two in half-hour blocks. It's likely you'll find a time to write.
- Write while you are fresh.
- Avoid writing in binges.
- Write in small, regular amounts.
- Schedule writing tasks so that you plan to work on specific, manageable units of writing in each session.
- Keep daily charts. Graph at least three things: (a) time spent writing, (b) page equivalents finished, and (c) percentage of planned task completed.
- Plan beyond daily goals.
- Share your writing with supportive, constructive friends until you feel ready to go public.
- Try to work on two or three writing projects concurrently so that you do not become overloaded with any one project.
It is also important to acknowledge that writing moves along slowly and that a writer must ease into writing. Like the runner who stretches before a road race, the writer needs warm-up exercises for both the mind and the fingers. Some leisurely writing activity, such as writing a letter to a friend, brainstorming on the computer, reading some good writing, or studying a favourite poem, can make the actual task of writing easier. I am reminded of John Steinbeck's (1969) "warm-up period" (p. 42) described in detail in Journal of a Novel: The East of Eden Letters. Steinbeck began each writing day by writing a letter to his editor and close friend, Pascal Covici, in a large notebook supplied by Covici.
