The Art of the Restart - Pravles Redneckoff

Pravles Redneckoff

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The Art of the Restart<br>How to Restart a Writing Project After Life Gets in the Way

Pravles Redneckoff<br>Jul 02, 2026

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Hi, there!<br>The Problem

Did you ever have this problem?<br>You are working on an exciting writing project. Then something happens which forces you to abandon the project for a while.<br>Once the emergency is over, you have the time to complete the project, but still have difficulties resuming work on it.<br>In this article, I explain one approach to deal with this kind of procrastination.<br>The protocol file

When I work on something, I virtually always use a protocol file.<br>It’s a file that contains information on<br>what I need to do next, and

where I need to continue.

The main purpose of a protocol file is to restore context quickly (in less than a minute).<br>The most interesting parts of a protocol file look like this:<br>** TODO Describe the protocol file

** TODO Think what to do next<br>There are two action items. The next step marker > shows the action item I am currently working on.<br>At the top of the file, I have a link, and when I click on this link, the editor will navigate to the next step marker.<br>After I complete the action item, I move the next step marker to the next one.<br>Now imagine I get distracted or have to stop working on this project for some other reason. Then, after minutes, hours, days, or weeks, I come back to the project. By this time I had forgotten where I had left off.

I click the Next step link at the top of the file and land on the action item I was working on before I had to interrupt the work. Within less than a minute I’ve restored my context.<br>Timestamps

Whenever I mark an action item as completed, my editor converts<br>** TODO Do something<br>into this:<br>** DONE Do something<br>CLOSED: [2026-06-30 Tue 05:24]<br>The completed or canceled action item gets a timestamp.<br>Since my protocol files are plain text files, you can write a tool which will count the number of action items completed or canceled on a particular day.<br>The Recovery Protocol (theory)

I can use all of the above to recover from a work interruption in the following way.<br>Figure out how many action items you completed on a typical day before the interruption.

Set a goal in terms of completed or canceled action items for today (how many action items do you intend to complete or cancel today?).

Work on the project at least until you’ve achieved the goal.

Objection

You may say: “But Pravles, what if I create a gazillion meaningless action items?”<br>Of course, you can. But we are all adults here and know any metric and KPI is a means to an end. In our case, the end is to do something so that eventually you will complete something valuable (publishable).<br>Also, sometimes tinkering with your writing helps get into the Vygotsky state.<br>To the objection, I say: Think like a writer, not like a company yes-man (yes-woman).<br>Two approaches to goals

When you use numbers to change your behavior, there are two approaches:<br>Siege

Blitz

In the siege approach, you try to increase the amount of work you do slowly.<br>For example, let’s say that before you stopped working, you completed 10 action items on a day.<br>According to the siege approach, you would add 10% and end with a goal of 11 action items.<br>The blitz approach is when your goal today is to double the number of actions you completed last time (20 instead of 11).<br>Both approaches are useful sometimes.<br>Benefits of the siege approach

The siege approach helps you rebuild your confidence that you can write slowly and gently. It’s especially useful when your psyche doesn’t work particularly well (e.g. because of sickness or stress). You increase the amount of work by 10% here, 5% there, and after a few weeks you return to your normal level.<br>Benefits of the blitz approach

The blitz approach is worth trying if<br>daring yourself works for you,

you feel you are brimming with energy, or

the interruption in your work was caused by external reasons (not the processes inside your psyche) and your blitz goal is a level of output you already achieved in the past.

Here is an example of the third case:<br>Imagine you normally complete 40 action items per day.

On day x you complete 20 action items, and then the heating pipe bursts. You and your neighbors do whatever you can to get the utility company to repair it before the water in the heating system freezes, leaving the entire building without heat and potentially making it uninhabitable.

On day x+1 the pipe is fixed. You set the goal at 40 action items which is double the previous day, but perfectly realistic because you already hit that number the day before the pipe burst.

The Recovery Protocol (practice)

First, download the source code and build the TODOS tool (TODOS means “TODO statistics”). Launch the application. The following window will appear.

Select a protocol file like this one.<br>Push the Arm button.<br>The tool will calculate how many action items were...