William Faulkner's 3 lessons for writing a classic novel in 48 days

William Faulkner was 33 when he published As I Lay Dying, one of the greatest novels of all-time. But what's really interesting (for productivity geeks), is that Faulkner created a productivity temple inside a power-plant, which allowed him to write the complete draft in 48 days.

Faulkner completed the draft (which required few alterations) in 4-hour bursts while working at the University of Mississippi power-plant, where he was the supervisor to two coal heavers. He spent the first part of his 12-hour night shift shovelling coal and barking directions to ensure the lights stayed on, but from midnight to 4 am, when demand for electricity waned, he worked at a makeshift desk (up-turned wheel barrow) handwriting his manuscript on unlined onion-skinned paper.

It hardly sounds like the setting to write a classic novel in a month-and-a-half, but there are 3 lessons from Faulkner's process that can accelerate productivity in the modern workplace.

The University of Mississippi Power House where Faulkner wrote As I Lay Dying. Photo: Bob Cummings.

1. One thing at a time. Faulkner had one focus: to write his self-described 'tour-de-force'. Science tells us that focus is a key to productivity, fragmenting your attention leads to the stickily named "attention residue". In her logically-titled paper, Why is it so hard to do my work? The challenge of attention residue when switching between work tasks, Leroy (2009) concludes that:

People need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers.

So, we're not designed to jump between tasks but it's rarely practical for knowledge workers to focus on a single task for an extended period of time. One solution is clustering similar tasks: finish a manageable section of your report; take a break; do all your emailing in a batch; take a break; complete all you meetings; take a break; repeat.

2. Tick tock. Each night, Faulkner had 4-hours to complete his writing before he had to "clean the fires and get the steam up again". His 4-hour writing window created urgency, similar to what the Pomodorro technique simulates with its 25-minute count-down timer. Interestingly, Leroy (2009) also found that you can also boost performance when switching between tasks by creating time pressure.

Time pressure while finishing a prior task is needed to disengage from the first task and thus move to the next task and it contributes to higher performance on the next task.

Again, props to the Pomodorro technique, which provides the right structure and time pressure to effectively task switch: focus on a task until it's done, take a break, move on to the next task.

3. Distractions are trivial, but their impact isn't. Not much was happening between midnight and 4 a.m. at the power plant, so Faulkner was able to maintain his focus on deep work. There were no colleagues stopping by asking Faulkner questions or Slack notifications pinging at him, which would have killed his writing flow for 23 minutes.

Don't forget you lose around 60 days a year to distractions, that's more time than it took Faulkner to write the book. If you're trying to do deep work, hide away and turn your phone off.

Luke Hurst is the Managing Director of Building 20; a Melbourne-based niche consultancy that delivers affordable, data-driven programs to organisations to reduce distraction and optimise productivity.