And then the murderer...

Now people do tell about the blank page problem, but usually I find it pretty counter-intuitive; starting from scratch is very easy, but keeping pace day after day is where it gets complicated.

When you start, you can concentrate on the interesting problems that intrigue you somehow — otherwise you probably wouldn't have started working on the problem in the first place. But when all the fun and new stuff is done, what's keeping your motivation then?

One of my first bosses told me a great life lesson that can help you overcome the "blank second page" problem — starting again the next day when you have already done the easy and fun stuff. It goes something like this:

When you are about to stop your work, don't finish a sentence. Leave your work to the part where it's the easiest to continue.

So think it so you're writing a book: You could finish the whole chapter today, but instead the last thing you write is:

And then the murderer...

Next morning you pick up from where you left, and suddenly it's easy to take the next small step as you have an easy context to continue from. You probably had pretty good idea of what the murderer was doing when you stopped there the day before, but nothing's preventing you from taking the story to whole another direction.

So always leave the most juicy part for tomorrow. That keeps you getting back to the problem day after day.