Writing With Distractions

As I’ve been writing a lot more, I find myself having changing levels of focus, which was to be expected. However, it got me thinking about the things I do when I need to focus, and I thought I would share some of my experiences with all of you. 

See, there are some things I can do that I can have a gaming stream on in the background, and truthfully, I really like working on things while listening to those. I get to support my comfort streamers while getting my work done, so it’s a win win. If I am putting a video on, I do prefer long form content, just so I can put one video on for four hours and not have to constantly be finding something else to have on in the background. As I’m writing this (and the rest of my blog posts for July) I’m listening to Shubble play Overwatch, if you are interested. 

Writing my chapters, however, is something that I don’t love doing while listening to a stream, because I get distracted too easily. As a result, I’ll listen to a podcast (usually true crime) or listen to music. I do have playlists for each of my projects, and you can find those playlists on my Spotify profile (https://open.spotify.com/user/31zl2i6ilheial5d2ydp6lysle3e), but I also like just putting an album on and going to town on my chapter. If you were curious, right now I’ve been mainly listening to “A Grey Area” by JP Saxe, “The Good Witch” by Maisie Peters, and “genre: sadboy” by mgk and Trippie Redd. 

When I really need to focus, specifically on editing, I go onto YouTube and find some kind of lofi or other study music, since I really need to be paying attention to what I’m doing when I do that. I tend not to listen to study music when I’m doing my other writing, just because I like having something a bit more stimulating to work to, but if I desperately need to finish something, that’s my go to. 

Speaking of desperately needing to finish something, I present to you the idea of writing sprints. And no, this is not running while you’re writing. It’s putting a timer on for a certain amount of time, and writing as much as you can in that period. I usually do thirty to sixty minute sprints, since I found after an hour and a half, my focus seriously declined, and I was usually able to make enough progress in the thirty to sixty minute range that I didn’t need to go past that. I don’t do writing sprints often, but when I’m running short on time for a deadline, or want to get a bunch of work done in a short amount of time, that’s what I do. 

Another aspect of writing with distractions is writing in public, which I am no stranger to. Honestly, I’m probably too comfortable with writing in public, but that’s a discussion for another day. I’ve written at work, at school, on the bus, at a grad party…you get the gist. It’s definitely not the easiest to focus when I’m writing at places that aren’t in my office, but sometimes, you just need to get some words on the page. I find headphones in and music on is the best way to focus when there’s a lot of external stimuli, but obviously, I can’t do that at work. I will say, what I usually end up doing when I’m writing at work is just making notes in my various writing notebooks, since that way I’m still working on my projects, but it doesn’t need a ton of focus. 

So, I’m quite used to writing with distractions, and depending on what I’m working on, sometimes that’s okay. 

That's all for now, folks!

-C