When I started writing this blog, my goal was to write a new post every week. “That’ll be pretty easy,” I told myself, “No problem.”
I’m staring at the date of my last post, which was over a month ago, and wondering, “What the hell happened?”
Real life happened.
Real life is full of distractions, and for me a bunch popped up at once. First, I am still in the process of publishing my first book. Something that I thought would take a week to set up ended up taking two weeks, which also overlapped with a two week vacation that my wife and I took. So a one week process turned into four weeks. In that time, I didn’t write. My focus was on getting the materials ready for my book and on vacation (which was pretty awesome and much needed, might I add.)
Distractions pop up in everything that we do. They offer a break from the norm, or are urgent things that we have no choice but to address. For those distractions that are a break from the norm – I’m looking at you Facebook and reddit – we can simply choose not to let them be distractions. For example, if you’re writing on your computer, don’t have a browser open. Seems simple, but for those of us with a touch of ADD, we like to bounce around to different things and usually have something going on in the background. Close those browser windows and focus. If you need to jump online to check something out, discipline yourself to stay focused and not veer off into the dark, time-sucking underbelly that is social media.
For urgent issues that pop up, or scheduled things that we can’t move (like a vacation) a distraction can take us down a road of getting out of a habit. You see this all the time with people and diets. They’ll do really well on a diet and then the holidays come up. “Well, it’s the holidays, I’ll get back on my diet afterward.” Boom, the weight comes back on and they have to start over. The same goes for writing. Right now, I don’t want to write. I’m all about relaxing when I can and working my ass off during the day (at my day job, not writing). I need to get back on the horse and start writing again. This post was my first step back into things.
Don’t let distractions get you down or throw out all of the hard work you’ve put into developing good habits. If you’ve been distracted like I have, take some time and refocus. Think about your writing goals and how you are going to reach them. It’s time to forget about the past and move on.