the hemingway bridge

Work never stops. Some projects do, but like a good story, most work could go on forever if we let it.

The trouble is then that you and I must stop sometimes. There’s sleep. Running around after kids. Going on dates with a spouse. It’s healthy to stop.

But it can be really hard to pick up work where you left off, right?

That’s where the Hemingway Bridge comes in.

Ernest Hemingway was a very disciplined writer. He was so disciplined that he would stop himself from writing even if he was on a roll, in the flow.

“I had learned already never to empty the well of my writing,” he wrote in A Moveable Feast, “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.”

He also believed that it’s important to keep your mind off the work until you sat down to it again. So it’s important to pause and it’s important to know how to pick up the work again.

The Hemingway Bridge is the practice of working “until you come to a place where you still have your juice and know what will happen next.” In practical terms, it could mean:

• Outlining your next steps

• Writing a question for yourself to answer

• Having a project checklist to work from (and making sure to check things off as you go)

I do the outline thing. Often in a notebook, sometimes in Slack so teammates know what I’m up to, and other times in a Confluence page or Google Doc if that’s where I’m working.

Next time you feel like you could work all night, give yourself a break and build a Hemingway Bridge to tomorrow.

Peter

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