Plan writing sessions toward a deadline.
A two-hour writing session does not produce two hours of writing, and the gap is where planning goes wrong. Warm-up is real — rereading yesterday's work and finding your place typically takes ten minutes before the first new sentence. Breaks between focus blocks then consume a further share: 25-minute blocks with 5-minute breaks means only 83 percent of the remaining window is writing time. Drafting speed during genuine focus is around 20 to 25 words a minute for considered prose, well below typing speed because you are composing rather than transcribing. Reporting the focus share makes the whole structure visible.
Focus time
Focus minutes = complete cycles x block length + any partial block, after warm-up
Expected output
Words = focus minutes x drafting speed in words per minute
Because you are composing, not transcribing. A 65 words-per-minute typist drafts original prose at 20 to 25 because most of the time is spent choosing the next phrase, not entering it. Speeds much above 30 usually indicate freewriting rather than considered drafting.
Yes. Sustained writing quality falls after 25 to 50 minutes, and a short break restores it. The alternative is not more output but slower, worse output that costs more in revision. Breaks are a productivity investment rather than an overhead.