You’re at the top of the food chain now and it’s great but there’s more pressure than ever to drive business results because if nothing happens, all fingers are pointing at you.

At the same time, you know a book would help you raise your firm’s profile with prospects and influencers and give your marketing department more to work with. And sure, you could get up at 4:30 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. to get 750 or 1,000 words per day down because your executive functions are most intact at that point. (In fact, most of my client writing gets done from 6:00 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. in the morning because I can get six hours of work out in those three.)

Quick definition: The executive functions can be viewed as the “conductor” of all cognitive skills of which there are eight: inhibition; shift; emotional control; initiation; working memory; planning/organization; organization of materials; and self-monitoring. (More on executive functions here – outside link.) Most people’s executive functions have about two or three hours of optimal “battery life” and then the brain needs time to recharge (move to lower intensity tasks for a while).

As an executive, your success hinges on having a well-working set of executive functions. If you can’t modulate your behavior; respond nimbly to different situations; contain your emotions in heated debates; consistently delegate and follow up; hold information in mind while you’re completing a task or having a conversation; manage task demands, and impose some kind of order in your universe—you’re going to have a tough time of it.

You need 100 percent of your executive functions available to run your business. But you also want to write a book. The problem is, book writing is an enormous tax on your executive functions, particularly when it comes to initiation, working memory, and planning/organization. These three are the main reasons why you shouldn’t write your book alone.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people do it—somehow. What you might not realize is a lot of those people are hiring people like me to share that load. (Shhhh. Or not. This approach is becoming more and more mainstream and I usually get a shout out in the acknowledgments.)

That’s cheating! No, it’s not. It’s smart resource management. The ideas are 100 percent yours—the developmental editor (that’s what we are) makes sure that’s the case. We also make sure you sound like the absolute best version of you.

In fact, this process, when you partner with the right person, book writing can actually be energizing because the discussions put you into a creative space of flow. When you get the your words back, you can approach them with an editing mindset, something you’re already very used to and that is a hell of a lot less taxing on your executive function than squeezing out every word yourself at 4:30 a.m. then relying what’s left of your executive functions to run your business.

To discuss how a developmental editor could help you get your book done faster and with a minimum of stress on your executive functions, grab 30-minutes to talk to me here.