You are so right. With nonfiction books, publishers often ask for about 70 pages, including the first chapter and a proposal and outline of the rest. Pulling that together can take weeks (or months) of work, more time than writing a very short book.

And--yes--putting one foot in front of another definitely works. Knock out a proposal too quickly and you may pay for it down the road when you realize you left out something the editor needed to know about before buying your book. Good luck!