Jerry Seinfeld: Don't Break the Chain

The most useful writing advice Jerry Seinfeld ever gave wasn't about punchlines. Not that there is anything wrong with punchlines.

The story goes that a young comic named Brad Isaac caught him backstage in the early Seinfeld years and asked for tips. Jerry didn't talk about talent. He said the way to be a better comic was to write better jokes, and the way to write better jokes was to write every day.

Then he told Isaac to hang a big year-at-a-glance calendar on a wall he couldn't ignore, grab a fat red marker, and put an X on every day he wrote.

After a few days you'll have a chain. Just keep at it and the chain will grow longer every day. You'll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job is to not break the chain.

That's the whole system. No word counts. No "was it good." Just: did you show up today.

How Jerry actually writes

Jerry still sits down every day.

Not with a laptop: just a yellow legal pad and blue bic. He wrote the entire Seinfeld series that way, episode by episode, and that a legal pad "says I'm taking this seriously" even when the subject is a Pop-Tart. Or a soup nazi.

The writing session has rules:

• Coffee goes here - pad goes here - notes go here.
• You don't have to write. You just can't do anything else. No phone, no news, no "just checking."
• The session has an end time and the alarm is the reward. Walk away.
• Of course most of the work is rewrite - Jerry puts it at about 95%.
• Finally, treat the first draft like a baby. You can love it. Treat the rewrite like a drill sergeant. It better lift its own weight at the end of it or it is going home in a body bag.

That last part matters more than people admit. A daily habit that only "counts" when the work is brilliant will die in week two. Jerry's version counts the sitting-down. Quality is a later problem, and he gives it plenty of time.

He has also said the session organizes his mind. Same place, same tools, same hour. The brain is, in his words, "a stupid little dog that is easily trained." You train it by showing up in the same room and doing the same thing until the room itself starts the work.

Why a chain is more powerful than a goal

A goal is just a wish. Tracking to a chain actually builds your skill. It is a system, and when push comes to shove we fall to the level of our systems - not our ambitions.

After three days, an X is just an X. After three weeks, the chain starts pulling. You don't want to be the person who snapped it for no reason. That's not guilt, exactly. It's identity. You have evidence that you are someone who writes (or runs, or calls mom, or opens the Bible) on ordinary Tuesdays.

A few things that make the chain work when motivation doesn't:

It shrinks the decision. You already decided. Today you either keep the chain or you don't. That's a worse question to sit with than "do I feel inspired."

It ignores quality on purpose. Bad pages still count. A half page on a yellow pad still counts. The days you almost skipped are the days the habit actually gets installed.

It compounds without asking you to feel it. One session is almost nothing. Two hundred sessions is a book, a set, a craft. You only notice the pile when you look back.

It survives travel, kids, and a brutal calendar. The bar can be low on a bad day. One paragraph. Ten minutes. The point is the X, not a masterpiece. Tomorrow you can go long.

Do it in Joe's Goals instead of on the fridge

The wall calendar still works of course. A lot of us just don't live in front of one wall anymore.

Here is a sample writing goal you can add to your tracker:

Tap the cell when you write. That's your X.

Joe's Goals keeps a chain stat on the goal — consecutive days you actually did it. You can see the line grow. You can also see the hole when you miss. Both are useful. It also shows you a longest chain so you can try again when you fall off.

A few ways to run it without turning the tracker into another job:

1. Define "done" before you start.** "I sat down and wrote" is enough. Pages, jokes, journal, code comments, a work memo — pick the thing you want to get better at and let that count. If the definition is fuzzy, you will negotiate with yourself at 10pm and lose.

2. Keep the bar boring.** Twenty minutes. One page. One joke. Whatever you can do on a day when the flight is delayed and the dog still needs walking. Ambition belongs in the rewrite, not in the check.

3. Use extra checks when you go twice.** Joe's Goals will take more than one mark on the same day. Morning pages and an evening pass both count. The chain only needs one, but the second check is a honest record of a bigger day. You also can make it so you get points for every check, or only when you write twice in a day (as an example). That's the trick: extra-productive days aren't invisible.

4. Put a note on the day if you want the story later.** A log note ("half a page on the airport bit," "rewrote the open") turns the grid into a working file. You don't need a novel in the note. Six words is plenty.

Now don't break the chain.