Sam Proof asks:
So what do you do to focus?
To be perfectly honest I kind of wonder why we hadn’t seen this kind of chaotic mind explosion from Sam earlier. I used to joke that he had never met a video sharing / social networking site he didn’t like. He is everywhere. I could never understand how he could be so many places – how he could have so many balls in the air at once!
The easy answer to Sam’s question is simply to minimise distractions. But how do you do that?
Firstly, by making yourself unavailable! By turning off the phone or taking it off the hook. By not logging on to instant messaging and social networking sites. If you’re working at a computer, shut down every application except the ones you require to get the task done. (Yes, this means your email too – it is a rich source of distraction material!) People can be needy at times that conflict with your working needs. I find usually saying something to the effect of, “I love you, but I have a deadline” or “I love you, but I really need to get this done” usually works.
Don’t have the television or the radio on while you’re attempting to work. Inane things take on undue significance when we are procrastinating. If you really feel like you must have something to listen to while you work, make sure its instrumental music. (And genuinely instrumental music. If your selection consists of karaoke tracks, your subconscious mind will preoccupy itself by superimposing lyrics, when known.) If you’re really fanatical there’s always the online noise generator, SimplyNoise.com.
Ideally you want a specific place to work, and a place that is clean, uncluttered and functional. You might like to check out Unclutterer for suggestions and examples of functional useful home office setups.
In Julia Cameron’s book, “The Artist’s Way,” she suggests a process she calls morning pages. Basically when you wake up in the morning you write three pages of stream-of-consciousness stuff. Cameron maintains getting this extraneous mental detail onto the page will help you focus on what really needs to be done. She writes:
All that angry, whiny, petty stuff that you write down in the morning stands between you and your creativity. Worrying about the job, the laundry, the funny knock in the car, the weird look in your lover’s eye – this stuff eddies through our subconscious and muddies our days. Get it on the page.
Take a weekly inventory of where you are up to with your projects and what you would like to achieve that week. Set a workload that is realistic. ‘Chunk’ your goals into smaller action points. The night before make a list of things you’d like to do the next day. (This is especially helpful if you’re not a morning person. Deciding on a course of action while you’re alert will help you waste less time when you’re not.)
Set personal deadlines. Realise that projects with open-ended completion dates often remain forever incomplete. (If you’re working collaboratively with others, give them a deadline ahead of the one you are using. This will give you some room to move if problems occur at their end.)
If you have a great idea about something unrelated to the task you’re working on in that moment, scribble a few notes about it in a notebook and get back to the task at hand. Similarly if you’re too wired to sleep because your mind is buzzing with ideas, get them down on paper and rest in the peace of knowing that your brilliant ideas will still be there in the morning.
Schedule some downtime. Seriously. You know what they say about all work and no play – it’s trite, it’s cliched and it’s completely true. Don’t be a workaholic. It’s not a good look and it will impede your ability to be creative and productive.
