Whenever I talk about working in real-time, making decisions as you go, figuring things out now rather than before, I get a question like this... "If you don't have a backlog, or deep sets of prioritized, ranked items, how do you decide what to do next?" My answer:  The same way you do when your made your list. You make decisions. We just make decisions about what to work on next as we go, looking forward, rather than making decisions as we went, looking backwards. Why work from what /seemed/ like a good idea before? Instead, work from appears to be a good idea now. You have more information now — why not use it? It's always baffled me how people who pluck work from long lists of past decisions think you can't make those same kinds of decisions now instead. It's all yay/nay decisions. Same process. Before wasn't magical. Before was just now, then. Why not look at now, now? Now is a far more accurate version of next. The backlog way is based on what you thought then. The non-backlog way is based on what you think now. I'll take now. One's stale, one's fresh. We'll take fresh. Then is further, now is closer. There's nothing special about having made decisions already. They aren't better, they aren't more accurate, they aren't more substantial just because they've been made. What they are, however, is older and often outdated. If you've got to believe in something, I'd suggest putting more faith in now. -Jason

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This is bizarrely what he taught me

Wendell Berry's list from 1987 is more relevant than ever before

a writer's dilemma