On the same day in 1983, James Cameron was hired to write the scripts for Aliens and Rambo II. He also had recently sold an idea of his own: The Terminator. This meant that in a 3-month period, Cameron had to write 3 scripts. To do so, Cameron came up with a 2-part strategy: First, Cameron bought two desks. In addition to the desk in his office, he set up a writing station in his bedroom and another in his living room. At the desk in his office, he worked on The Terminator. At the desk in his living room, he worked on Aliens. And at the desk in his bedroom, he worked on Rambo. “That way,” Cameron explained, “when I moved from one desk to another, all the notes and papers and everything were right where they were supposed to be. If I didn't know what to do next on Rambo, I'd go work on Alien for a while.” Second, Cameron figured out how to make the completion of 3 scripts in 3 months inevitable: He decided that the 3 scripts would each be 120 pages long, for a total of 360 pages. He then divided the total number of hours he wanted to work during that 3-month period by 360 to figure out how many pages per hour he had to write. “And then,” Cameron said, “I just wrote that many pages per hour.” Takeaway 1: A comedian once told Jerry Seinfeld that they'd been struggling to write new material. Seinfeld asked the comedian where he typically does his writing. At home, the comedian said. “Get yourself an office,” Seinfeld said. It doesn't have to be fancy, he added, "just somewhere that you have to drive your car to. And when you walk into that office, your brain is going to go, 'I know what we do in here.' And it will do it." In psychology, this is known as environmental priming. The brain learns to associate certain locations with certain behaviors and kinds of thinking. When Cameron moved from his Terminator desk to his Aliens desk or his Rambo desk, his brain was environmentally primed to go, “I know what we do here.” Takeaway 2: In the strategic management book, “The 4 Disciplines of Execution” (4DX), the writers make a distinction between “lag measures” and “lead measures.” Lag measures are the goals you are trying to accomplish. Lead measures are the actions predictive of achieving those goals. Three completed scripts, for instance, is a lag measure. Writing a predetermined number of words per day is a lead measure—an action that, if consistently repeated, makes the completion of three scripts inevitable. To achieve any goal—writing three scripts, hitting a sales target, losing weight, running a marathon, etc.—the 4DX writers recommend a (coincidentally) 2-step strategy. First, identify the lead measures. Second, “apply a disproportionate energy to the lead measures.” That's what Cameron did. He first identified how many pages per hour he had to write. “And then,” as he said, “I just wrote that many pages per hour.” Focusing on the lead measure, Cameron completed three scripts in, inevitably, three months. - - - “If I get this book done it will be remarkable. But of course I will if I just set down the day-by-day work. Only worry about the 2000 words of each day’s work. That’s the only way to do it, I have found. Just a matter of doing the daily stint.” — John Steinbeck, Working Days: The Journals of Grapes of Wrath Follow @bpoppenheimer for more content like this!