4.3.1 FEAR OFCOMMITMENT
I noted earlier that research is like dating and writing is like marriage, and one of the fears that inhibits writers is a fear of commitment. Just as marriage forces you to commit to one person, writing forces you to commit to a particular writing decision.
By committing to one organizational structure, you foreclose the option to choose all the other possible structures out there. By committing to a particular set of cases and other authorities, you shut off the chance to find the one perfect case that would transform your work-a-day brief into the “perfect” brief of your dreams. The psychologist Dan Ariely has observed that one of the ways in which human beings are “predictably irrational” is that we try to keep all of our options open as long as possible, even when doing so creates other problems.19The sad thing is that procrastinating instead of writing almost certainly hurts your ability to create the best possible brief. If you write a draft early in your writing process, you will have time to review and revise your document, increasing the chances that you will write a better brief. If you postpone writing due to fear of commitment, however, you increase the chances that the first draft will be the only draft, making each commitment even more final, and thus, even more difficult. Furthermore, because procrastination usually leaves you with little or no time to revise, the brief will likely not be good work, much less your best work.
If fear of commitment is a problem for you, focus on using private memos as you write. If you are concerned about committing to any particular writing choice, drop a private memo footnote to yourself to articulate your concern and preserve the other options you were considering. The private memo will help to quiet your fear of commitment by reminding you that this is not a “final” commitment and by giving you a way to identify the places where you want to consider other options. Furthermore, the private memos can direct at least part of your revision process by focusing your attention on particular aspects of the draft.