I confess. This post isn’t about Jerry Seinfeld. I’ve never met the guy.  This tip comes at least second hand when a writer for www.lifehacker.com tells of when he hung around comedy clubs. Lo and behold, Seinfeld was performing a few jokes and offered up some advice after the show:

He said the way to be a better comic was to create better jokes and the way to create better jokes was to write every day. But his advice was better than that. He had a gem of a leverage technique he used on himself and you can use it to motivate yourself—even when you don’t feel like it.

He revealed a unique calendar system he uses to pressure himself to write. Here’s how it works.

He told me to get a big wall calendar that has a whole year on one page and hang it on a prominent wall. The next step was to get a big red magic marker.

He said for each day that I do my task of writing, I get to put a big red X over that day. “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 next is to not break the chain.

Whether your goal is to write a Tolstoy-esque novel or you just want to stop eating so much Ben and Jerry’s each night, his advice is sound. Setting deadlines for yourself until your new habits become natural is golden.

A couple of other little writing tools piqued my interest, that I thought I’d share. 750words.com and writeordie.com are two sites that encourage you to set daily writing goals of _______ number of words. The interface allows the user to character-count backwards.

Have you seen other writing tools or encourage a different kind of productivity? If so, please share!