fits and starts

Short, inconsistent, and irregular intervals, as of motion or progress. The car was almost completely broken down, but, with fits and starts, we were able to get it to a mechanic. A: "How's the essay coming along?" B: "Oh, in fits and starts."

with irregular movement; with much stopping and starting. (*Typically: by ~; in ~; with ~.) Somehow, they got the job done in fits and starts. By fits and starts, the old car finally got us to town.

In bursts of activity, spasmodically. The fits portion of this expression dates from the sixteenth century, and the pairing with starts came soon afterward, in the early seventeenth century. “Thou hast these things only by fits and starts,” wrote Robert Sanderson in one of his Sermons (1620). John Ray’s proverb collection of 1670 put it slightly differently: “By fits and girds, as an ague takes a goose.”