Somedays, focusing on your writing is easy. You’re in love with your story, and it’s easy to love yourself in the creative process, sometimes for hours. On other days, the ugly distraction monster raises its head, and suddenly you’re working on everything expect your book. I’m pretty sure we’ve all had at least one day like this. Working from home almost exclusively as I do, I find it especially difficult sometimes to stay focused on my writing when there are so many other things, from social media to mopping the floors that need doing. That focus and dedication can be such a hard fought battle sometimes. Today, I thought I’d share my top five tips for beating distraction and staying focused on your writing.
Close off anything you don’t need
On any given day, my computer is a complete mess of tabs, programs, and windows. It’s super convenient, because everything is right at my fingertips. I don’t have to waste time searching for a bookmark, logging into something, or opening a file when I want to work on something specific. It’s great, until suddenly I find myself hopping from window to window, or switch between all my tabs without every actually doing anything.
If you struggle with this, try closing off all the windows and tabs that you don’t for the task you’re working on most immediately. You can reopen anything else whenever you need them. If your work is the only thing you can see, you have a much better chance of actually focusing on that.
Disable pop-up notifications
You’re deep in the middle of your writing. the words are flowing, the story is coming out just the way you want it to. Then, all of a sudden, a notification flashes up on screen. You look away from your writing for a moment to see what it is, and all of a sudden, your focus is lost. Now your brain is fixated on that notification. What is it? Do you need to deal with it immediately? It could be important.
Disable pop-up notifications and anything that might appear on your screen unexpectedly and steal your attention away from your writing. Once you’ve got yourself to the page and started writing, the last thing you want is for something to pop up out of nowhere and take away that hard won focus.
Keep your phone out of sight
Having your phone close at hand while you’re working can be super distracting. It’s not really a helpful writing tool. and it’s loaded with distractions. On a good day, you might be able to ignore it like it isn’t there. On a more difficult day, having your phone sitting anywhere you can see it is a distraction waiting to happen. A notification might light up the screen, tempting you to stop what you’re doing and see what it is. Or you might decide that you’ve earned a few minutes scrolling social media, which turns into a half hour or more.
It’s all too easy to procrastinate instead of working when your phone is close at hand. Putting it out of sight means that you won’t be distracted if the screen lights up, and you won’t have that constant temptation to check out a couple of things on your phone instead of writing. If you can’t see it, you’ll think about it less, and it’ll be much easier to focus.
Know what you’re working on
Sometimes, when I’m finding it difficult to find my focus, I bounce from task to task instead of settling on one thing. I add three words to my manuscript, read two lines of a blog post I’m drafting, fiddle with a photo, and then start the cycle again, without getting anything meaningful done on any of these tasks. It can feel like I’m being productive, because look, I’m working on all these things. Except I’m not, because I don’t focus on any of them long enough to actually do anything.
Have a clear idea of what I’m supposed to be doing is super helpful because it forces me to stop bouncing and think about what I’m supposed to be doing on a single thing. Prioritising one task over another and making the conscious decision to finish it before moving on helps me to solidify where my efforts should be going, and helps me focus on one thing at a time.
Set aside enough time to get invested
It’s not always possible to set aside large chunks of time, I know. Sometimes you only have five or ten minute chunks in which to get anything done. And if that is the case, then making the most of those fragments of time is amazing. However, if you have the opportunity, try setting aside a larger chunk of time for your writing. Working in short bursts means that you never have quite enough time to get fully immersed in what you’re doing. Your brain takes a while to really get immersed in the task. If you can avoid distractions long enough to find your sense of flow, it’s amazing how much you can get done.
These are my top five tips for beating distraction and finding your focus for your writing. But I would love to hear from you. What is your top tip for avoiding distractions? What is your biggest distraction when writing, or doing other tasks? Which tip from this list will you be putting into action? Let’s chat down in the comments!
