TK: The Secret to Effortless Writing and Unbroken Momentum
TK, or the secret to effortless writing (2024)
I discovered a simple journalism trick to maintain writing flow: when unsure of a word or fact, just type TK to come back later. This method preserves momentum by preventing interruptions, turning every TK into a built-in TODO list. Unlike common placeholders like TODO or question marks, TK is unique enough to avoid false positives during a quick search, ensuring I never miss a detail while keeping my creative train of thought moving.
It's this approach that lets me appear as if I always know what word should come next.
- ifh-hn
I just used to use: ????
It server the same purpose, placeholder for a word I couldn't think of, and wouldn't naturely appear in the text. Plus for me I could hammer out the four characters in frustration too, for not being able to think of the word/term I wanted.
- rsingel
Indeed a great trick. I often double it to TKTK just to make it stand out even more.
Fun fact: the Ghost.org editor looks for TK
- cauch
I've a very dim memory of having heard about it years ago (more than a decades), from an article of Cory Doctorow, and in my mind, he was the one who came up with the idea (and chose the letters TK).
But I can be wrong (maybe it's not from Doctorow, maybe the article did not even claim the paternity of coming up with TK but it was me badly understanding it, ...)