Get Your Focus On

Life is distracting.

There are the two-hundred television streaming options.

There are the 51 million YouTube channels. (not hyperbole. I looked it up!)

There are also 75-thousand Substack newsletters.

Emails. Text messages. Social media doomscrolling you perhaps engage in at two in the morning when your cortisol levels don’t let you sleep.

How can we gather all this chatter, rustle it into a pen, and keep the restless herd/horde contained while we focus on our daily goals?

Focus is not the same thing as concentration. Focus is deciding where to put your attention. Concentration is more difficult because it requires sustained focus. All of us have trouble focusing sometimes. For some, this is more clinical. For others, it’s less clinical and more habit. In our hyper-online world, we are becoming more distracted. There’s just so much to absorb.

It’s NOT our fault!

Okay, well, it might not be our fault in that we didn’t create these algorithms and the tech saturated world we are forced to navigate, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to take responsibility and work on reclaiming our focus.

We can do this. But how? Here are some ideas off the top of my head.

• Go offline more hours every day. This means turning off your phone or putting it in the other room. If you are working on your computer, only open the files on which you are working. If you MUST look up something online, do it quickly and shut the tab down, and whatever you do, do not follow a link trail.

• Only watch TV or YouTube for a specific number of minutes per day and only at certain times during the day/evening. You decide. Stick to it.

• Create a to-do list, not too many items, and check items off as you finish them. So satisfying!

• Meditate. Meditation trains your brain to focus by allowing you to practice pulling your attention back to your mantra or breathing or guide’s voice or sound (chimes, anyone?)

• Review your goals often. Reviewing goals leads to motivation, and motivation leads to focus.

• Reward yourself. Did you choose to deep clean the noxious refrigerator instead of binge-watching a favorite streamer? Did you log into Novlr and meet or surpass your word goal for the day? Reward yourself. I’m not talking ice-cream or chocolate (though these are fabulous and delicious!) so much as giving yourself a mental pat on the back. Sit back and experience the feeling of accomplishment. Tomorrow, remember how good this felt when you have to make that choice again.

• Self-talk. Tell yourself you care more about completing your task and give yourself all the reasons WHY. Why is this task important to you? What’s at stake?

• Make it a habit. Whatever it is you are working on, make it a habit. Habits create less resistance. It’s the difference between zig-zagging around potholes in a back road that hasn’t been maintained for five years and skimming along a smooth highway upgraded with Build Back Better funding. It can be hard to build a habit but well worth it.

• You’ll get stronger with practice.

I’m one who finds it easy to procrastinate & find a million other little things to do than write, but because I have a pretty strong “why” when it comes to my writing, I want to change that. I’m working on building my focus at the same time I’m working to build my muscles. If I want to increase my muscle mass, I need to bring focus to my workout and make working out a priority. If I want to build my book list, I need to bring focus to my work in progress, sitting my butt down at my desk and getting my fingers tap-tapping on the keys.

Sunday, I wrote 4,000 words. Yesterday, 2,000. Today, I’ve got 600 so far. It’s a little harder today. I took some time out to write this blog post.

Darn. I lost focus.

_____

This essay was first published on my online writing journal Shelley's Journal, on June 10. Click the link to see it there and read others like it. I don't always repub, but this one I thought would be interesting to my fellow writers and to everyone, writers and readers alike, who feel distracted and unfocused. Hang in there. We're all struggling. We can DO this! SRB

Wasting Time or Clearing Space?

Frankie here. I feel the need to establish that because I'm trying to focus with multiple things going on today -- including a visit from the cable guy in a few hours. That means I need to stay home for the appointment instead of going into my office at school. It turns out today is also bringing a problem with my internet connection to my school email account. Can't tell if that is related to my internet at home, but I was able to check on my phone. Whatever it is, technology is messing with my head today. But I am able to get to this website.

Anyway, on to what I want to write about -- actually it does have to do with staying focused. I have three different writing projects going on this summer and a couple on the back burner. I was hoping to get a lot done over the 4th of July. No plans for barbecues, picnics, trips to the beach or other travel. I was going to stay glued to my computer and work.

But then a funny thing happened. For months, I been putting everything I didn't have a place for or wanted to get rid of in a small room off my living room that I refer to as my "sunroom". The description is much too grand for the space. But the room is at the front of the house and gets sunlight all day when the living room and dining room only receive strong morning and midday sunlight. It also doubles as my guest room on the rare occasions when someone is staying over. For months, it's been a space to stage the stuff I needed to sort through and get rid of.

On July 4th, I walked by the room, looked inside, and suddenly had the overwhelming urge to wade into the boxes and books and old bills that needed shredding and gift boxes and whatever. It had gotten to the point that only Harry, my cat, could find a way in. He was using the room as if it were a forest and lurking among the chaos.

I started stacking and suddenly I wanted to tackle my chaos. I wanted to get the job done. I even stopped and called to make an appointment for a junk pick-up. An appointment on Monday. Wonderful! Have some junk, including an armchair that I've had for years and really need to get rid of. (Harry had been using it to sharpen his claws).

Appointment made, I spent the next two days sorting and packing in bags and boxes. I spent the day after that going through the notes and books I'd found. I had tried to reschedule the appointment on Day 2, put it off until later that Monday afternoon. But nothing else was open. So I kept working. And then I moved into the dining room and cleared off all the papers and books I had piled on the bench by my table where I had been working on my computer. My bench cushion had arrived by FedEx while I was sorting.

On Monday afternoon, the junk trunk arrived. The efficient team swooped in and departed with armchair and old porch chairs and all my other stuff. Then I turned on HGTV for inspiration and started moving furniture and organizing.

Meanwhile, I was not at my computer writing. I was not doing research. I was apparently getting nothing at all done. I felt guilty and completely undisciplined. How could I waste all that time. Who cared about the pillow or the vase of silk flowers that I'd moved for the fifth time. But I was obsessed and I kept at it until Tuesday and drifted over into Wednesday when I finally got dressed and went to the office. 

Wasted time? It seems it wasn't. I found notes to myself and books I had forgotten in the clutter. As I was doing the physical tidying and shifting, I seem to have done the same in my brain. Some books have found their way back to the dining room table. But every time I look over at the bench, I have a sense of satisfaction. The area rugs went out with the junk, and suddenly the rooms seem larger.

After I got rid of the physical clutter, I had an email from someone who was doing research on Albany with a question. As I was thinking about that, I suddenly realized that Saratoga in 1939 would be a wonderful place to send a couple of my characters. I had already established that the woman loves horses, but it had never even occurred to me until that moment . . . I also hadn't thought about using mobility (a theme that I was dealing with in the book I'm writing about gangster movies) as the unifying focus for a chapter I was working on in the dress and crime book.

I'm back at my computer today. Maybe I'm making excuses by saying that clearing my clutter helped me to focus. I could be done by now with what I had planned to work on during those four days. But I have this theory that when I have an overwhelming urge to do something else, it's probably because I need time for my ideas to incubate. Like that robin who is holding up my efforts to have my front steps and door repainted because she has returned to lay more eggs and is sitting on her nest under the awning, I need to follow my instincts.

Of course, it would be nice if I could explain that to the editor who is waiting for the chapters from the gangster book. But I'm getting there. I intend to keep writing while the cable guy is here.