Ask A ScienceBlogger

This week's question:

How is it that all the PIs (Tara, PZ, Orac et al.),
various grad students, post-docs, etc. find time to fulfill their
primary objectives (day jobs) and blog so prolifically?

There are a few things to say about this.  It helps to be
proficient with the technology involved, so that the process of writing
and posting is not itself an obstacle.  



What I do to facilitate the process is this: first I get an idea, and
do a little background research.  Only rarely to I sit and
write a port right away.  Rather, I spend five minutes or so
scanning the articles that I will write about, put the pertinent links
on del.ico.us, or maybe save a set of tabs using href="http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/">Firefox.
 I then get back to work or whatever.  In the back of
my mind, or at least somewhere outside of the frontal lobes, I let my
brain work on it.  I might think it over while driving, or
eating, or whatever.  When I am ready to write, I open all the
bookmarks in tabs, so I can switch between them easily.  That
saves a little time.  I write using two monitors, so I can
have the editor (NVu)
open on one screen, and the browser on another.  That saves a
little bit of time.  



Easily, though the biggest factor in being efficient, is that I write
about things that I am interested in, and think about a lot anyway.
 Often, the ideas are already organized in my head, because
they are topics that I think about all the time.  All I have
to do is get the ideas on the screen.