Today, we’re here to talk about things that eat your attention and how vital it is for life in general, but specifically for pursuing a creative writing career, that you eliminate all of them ruthlessly.
See, time and attention make up bandwidth, which is a limited resource. If the two base resources are limited, then obviously it’s going to be limited as well. And as we try to decide what it is we’re going to spend our time and attention on, it’s incredibly important that we spend it on things that matter.
And that in and of itself is a really good litmus test for finding out whether you should be allowing something to distract you or not. See, when you sit down to write, every time your attention is pulled away, either to a YouTube video, or a ping on your phone, or something happening outside, or somebody calling you, or more likely a Discord notification, every single time you are giving away a piece of your creativity. You are losing something. And this intangible something that you’re losing is the fuel for your creative work.
Now, that’s not to say that you can’t ever look at Discord, or you can’t ever get a phone call, or if you get up from your desk to look outside at what’s happening, you’re somehow going to be less of a creative person. But the truth is that if you do each of those things every single time, then you won’t have very much time left for creativity.
Because our bandwidth is a limited resource, we need to guard it. We need to be jealous about it. And the easiest way to make sure we’re jealous about it, or we’re guarding it, is to just clear out all of the things that distract us.
Now, I want to be really, really clear. I’m not saying that you should go into monk mode, or live under a rock, and never talk to anybody. I’m not saying that you should be a recluse. No, it’s really important that you engage with the world around you. It’s incredibly hard to be a good writer if you don’t interact with other people. Instead, what I’m saying is that you should be jealously guarding the time you write.
See, we’re not going to write every day, all day. As much as I would love to, it’s impossible. And so, carefully portioning out time when you are going to be distraction-free and writing typically works the best.
Now, when you want to deal with sort of the small nuisances, the small things that are biting at your attention, things like phone notifications, or social media, or unwanted noise, that sort of stuff, then your best bet is to just really focus in on eliminating those things during the period you write. Not all the time. I’m not saying, you know, delete your social media apps and, like, throw away your phone. I mean, maybe you should. I don’t know. It’s your life. It’s not my life.
Instead, what I’m saying is that while you write, you need to be really, really ruthless about eliminating those distractions. You need to cut them out completely. Turn your phone on, do not disturb, or stick it under a rock. I’m not joking. If you have a houseplant, a great strategy is when you want time away from your phone, lift up your houseplant, stick your phone face down underneath, and put the houseplant back on top. And then leave it there until it’s time to pick it back up again. And time to pick it back up again is not when it vibrates. No, time to pick it back up again is when you are done writing.
You can also enlist your family and friends. If you have people in your life who like to talk with you regularly, that’s fantastic. But when you’re writing, it’s important that they not disturb you. And so just go and ask them. Say, hey, I’m going to be writing typically for maybe an hour or an hour and a half or two hours in this period of the day. So can you please not email me or text me or that sort of thing? There are plenty of apps that will help you manage all of that so that you don’t get those messages.
Now, I know that if you’re like me, you’re immediately having anxiety because somebody might need to get a hold of you. Something might be really important. You might miss something. I hate missing things. I hate missing things. But the truth is that very, very few things are that important, that they can’t wait an hour.
It’s sort of crazy to me how my mindset around this has changed because when I was young, I didn’t have a cell phone. I know some of you, I’m showing my age here. Some of you are like, what do you mean you didn’t have a cell phone? I didn’t have a cell phone. And so if my friend wanted to get a hold of me, they had to call my house. And when they called my house, if I wasn’t literally standing there next to the phone and my mom got it, she’d be like, sure, I’ll take a message. And then she’d hang up the phone. And I would get the message when I got the message. I wouldn’t suddenly immediately have it.
And there’s some really good things about technology and the ability for people to get a hold of us. But when you’re trying to do really creative work, a disruption like that is so bad for your process. Just trust me on this. This is one of those things that if you’ve never done it, you sort of have to trust. If you can put away the distractions during your writing time, you’re going to find yourself so much more creative.
It might be hard at first because our brains really, really, really love the dopamine drip that notifications and distractions give us. But the more you practice, the more you get used to it, the better it’s going to feel. So do yourself a favor. Set concentrated time when you are going to be writing and then put away all of your distractions and just write.
YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/cAB39nhkwi0
Thanks for reading and watching.
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