Day 339: Concentrated, uninterrupted work time
Yesterday, I distracted myself a LOT. So, to try to combat this distraction, I started off my day with a walk and listening to a new audiobook I got from the library, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. I like it so far. The concepts are a bit theoretical and require a bit of effort to comprehend (at least for me). In comparison to writing books, I have to listen carefully to this one to fully understand what he’s saying. He talks a bit about things I’m not very familiar with, such as business concepts and also some things that might touch on sociology concepts, in order to explain his reasonings and how he came to his understanding of concentrated work.
I’m not very far into the book yet, but one thing I noticed today was that pretty much all of the examples in the book were of people who worked in long chunks of uninterrupted time. It may be that he hasn’t addressed the issue of breaks, or that he won’t address it at all later in the book, but it seems that the people who are able to focus and work with concentration do it completely uninterrupted. They do it for several hours at a stretch—although never for longer than a typical work day—and their output and productivity is far and above other people.
I haven’t read the entire book yet, but I think today I’ll try longer Pomodoro sessions than yesterday. I was doing 25 minutes of work and 5 minute breaks, but I think today I’ll go for 50 minutes of work and 10 minute breaks. I want to take breaks every hour because it’s essential for the health of my back.
The book also mentions that this kind of focus requires practice, so I don’t expect to suddenly be able to concentrate today. Especially since my mind wandered a lot yesterday even when I was supposed to be focusing on my work. But I will give this a shot and try to really concentrate and focus.
In the book, everyone who does this focused concentrated work disconnects from the internet. Right now I’m writing in 4thewords.com, which is a strong motivator for me. I’m not sure if it’s a distraction or not, though. Battling monsters is fun, and keeps me motivated to keep writing. Many times I will write just a little more just to finish a monster battle I’ve started, and end up fighting a couple monsters and writing a lot more than I intended. The monster battles are especially helpful to get me to freewrite to brainstorm when I get stuck on a part.
But it is definitely a stimulus, because I see the monsters as I defeat them. I take quests and collect their rewards. I choose the monsters to fight next.
Right now, the thought of not writing in 4thewords makes me sad, but at the same time I really want to learn to be more focused as I work. I suppose what I should do is experiment and see how well I focus when I write in 4thewords, and when I write in Scrivener. The whole point of this daily writing blog is to act like a lab notebook to record my experiments and see what works for me and what doesn’t.
I suppose today I’ll try writing in 4thewords and see if I’m able to stay focused. If I get distracted by the game, then I’ll know that I need to definitely get completely offline and work in Scrivener instead.
Also when I work, I tend to need to look up synonyms in a thesaurus, and I use online thesauruses. Today I’ll use the smaller thesaurus that comes with my computer rather than a website one. I’ve closed all websites on my browser except for 4thewords, and the only applications open on my computer are the ones I use for writing (Scrivener, my spreadsheets with my time recording and my scene list, my Toggl timer.
I will also turn off my music today too. I can kind of see how music might pull my mind away from my task if I notice when a song changes or something, and I have a couple times been distracted by my music.
I suppose that uninterrupted work time also means I should experiment with not doing other things during my breaks, so no nonfiction reading today.
I wonder, if I learn to focus my attention, if that would also apply to self-editing? Would I be able to do the self-editing on my Lady Wynwood’s Spies 1 book in long chunks of focused time, or would I get sloppy with the editing because I dislike it so much? I’m kind of assuming that being able to focus on tasks assumes you actually want to do the task, since in all the examples in the book, people were able to focus on things that pertained to their areas of expertise. None of them were focusing on anything they didn’t want to do. So can you focus on a task that you are only doing because you have to do it, not because you like it?
I will clear the decks right now so that there won’t be anything nagging at me, and then get started. I hope today’s experiment works.
***
I ended up not setting my Pomodoro timer at all and just writing as long as I could. I would get up to use the bathroom, and that was enough movement for me to stretch my back every hour.
I felt very focused for the first 2 hours, and got a lot done. My words per hour rate was rather high considering I was writing for over 90 minutes. But I did notice that it was very mentally exhausting. I suppose it’s like any other mental muscle that needs to be trained.
Also, I noticed that I took a break when I had finished the last monster in my queue. I need to be better about making sure I have lots of monsters in my battle list so that I won’t be tempted to stop when the monsters are all gone. But otherwise, I actually didn’t get distracted by the game and just kept writing and defeating monsters in my battle list (it automatically starts a new battle once I defeat one).
Then I got up to make lunch. I had some wait time and did some writing while I was waiting, but today, maybe because I had been working to focus earlier, I was more aware of how my attention shifted from writing, to doing some cooking, and then I had to make a mental shift back to writing. I definitely wasn’t as fully concentrating since I was aware I had a cooking timer.
And then my IBS started flaring up, which made it difficult to focus at all!
I’m really close to finishing this last scene. I think I’ll pause for lunch and since I’m feeling so uncomfortable, and then try to finish the scene later.
***
I finished writing the book!
It’s 10,000 words over!
Now I have to edit!
Only one of those statements is a happy one.
However, I’m pretty happy with the way the book turned out. I think the writing is the best I can do at this point in my writing career.
The act of consciously trying to focus and deliberately avoiding any distractions seemed to work for me, although I only tried it for about 2 hours this morning. It was very mentally exhausting, so I’ll need to practice it more. I’ll try it when I have to do the blocking and then the writing for the next Regency book.
I thought about trying to start on the editing today, but I think I’ll put that off until tomorrow. I’m not very good at self-editing, and I think I’d rather try to get it done earlier in the day when I have more energy and more ability to focus.
After I finish the editing, I’m curious (and I’m dreading) how many hours it took me to write this book.
Since I didn’t do my Regency nonfiction reading or my Japanese flashcards during my breaks like I did yesterday, I’ll do them now. I think it’ll feel good to get some of that non-writing stuff done. I keep wanting to make it a habit to do some of that everyday and it just never seems to get done since I was trying to finish this book as fast as possible.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 31 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1787 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 549 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 39 minutes
My takeaway for today: Practice more focused undistracted work.
My second takeaway for today: I need to be better about making sure I have lots of monsters in my battle list so that I won’t be tempted to stop when the monsters are all gone.
I’m not very far into the book yet, but one thing I noticed today was that pretty much all of the examples in the book were of people who worked in long chunks of uninterrupted time. It may be that he hasn’t addressed the issue of breaks, or that he won’t address it at all later in the book, but it seems that the people who are able to focus and work with concentration do it completely uninterrupted. They do it for several hours at a stretch—although never for longer than a typical work day—and their output and productivity is far and above other people.
I haven’t read the entire book yet, but I think today I’ll try longer Pomodoro sessions than yesterday. I was doing 25 minutes of work and 5 minute breaks, but I think today I’ll go for 50 minutes of work and 10 minute breaks. I want to take breaks every hour because it’s essential for the health of my back.
The book also mentions that this kind of focus requires practice, so I don’t expect to suddenly be able to concentrate today. Especially since my mind wandered a lot yesterday even when I was supposed to be focusing on my work. But I will give this a shot and try to really concentrate and focus.
In the book, everyone who does this focused concentrated work disconnects from the internet. Right now I’m writing in 4thewords.com, which is a strong motivator for me. I’m not sure if it’s a distraction or not, though. Battling monsters is fun, and keeps me motivated to keep writing. Many times I will write just a little more just to finish a monster battle I’ve started, and end up fighting a couple monsters and writing a lot more than I intended. The monster battles are especially helpful to get me to freewrite to brainstorm when I get stuck on a part.
But it is definitely a stimulus, because I see the monsters as I defeat them. I take quests and collect their rewards. I choose the monsters to fight next.
Right now, the thought of not writing in 4thewords makes me sad, but at the same time I really want to learn to be more focused as I work. I suppose what I should do is experiment and see how well I focus when I write in 4thewords, and when I write in Scrivener. The whole point of this daily writing blog is to act like a lab notebook to record my experiments and see what works for me and what doesn’t.
I suppose today I’ll try writing in 4thewords and see if I’m able to stay focused. If I get distracted by the game, then I’ll know that I need to definitely get completely offline and work in Scrivener instead.
Also when I work, I tend to need to look up synonyms in a thesaurus, and I use online thesauruses. Today I’ll use the smaller thesaurus that comes with my computer rather than a website one. I’ve closed all websites on my browser except for 4thewords, and the only applications open on my computer are the ones I use for writing (Scrivener, my spreadsheets with my time recording and my scene list, my Toggl timer.
I will also turn off my music today too. I can kind of see how music might pull my mind away from my task if I notice when a song changes or something, and I have a couple times been distracted by my music.
I suppose that uninterrupted work time also means I should experiment with not doing other things during my breaks, so no nonfiction reading today.
I wonder, if I learn to focus my attention, if that would also apply to self-editing? Would I be able to do the self-editing on my Lady Wynwood’s Spies 1 book in long chunks of focused time, or would I get sloppy with the editing because I dislike it so much? I’m kind of assuming that being able to focus on tasks assumes you actually want to do the task, since in all the examples in the book, people were able to focus on things that pertained to their areas of expertise. None of them were focusing on anything they didn’t want to do. So can you focus on a task that you are only doing because you have to do it, not because you like it?
I will clear the decks right now so that there won’t be anything nagging at me, and then get started. I hope today’s experiment works.
***
I ended up not setting my Pomodoro timer at all and just writing as long as I could. I would get up to use the bathroom, and that was enough movement for me to stretch my back every hour.
I felt very focused for the first 2 hours, and got a lot done. My words per hour rate was rather high considering I was writing for over 90 minutes. But I did notice that it was very mentally exhausting. I suppose it’s like any other mental muscle that needs to be trained.
Also, I noticed that I took a break when I had finished the last monster in my queue. I need to be better about making sure I have lots of monsters in my battle list so that I won’t be tempted to stop when the monsters are all gone. But otherwise, I actually didn’t get distracted by the game and just kept writing and defeating monsters in my battle list (it automatically starts a new battle once I defeat one).
Then I got up to make lunch. I had some wait time and did some writing while I was waiting, but today, maybe because I had been working to focus earlier, I was more aware of how my attention shifted from writing, to doing some cooking, and then I had to make a mental shift back to writing. I definitely wasn’t as fully concentrating since I was aware I had a cooking timer.
And then my IBS started flaring up, which made it difficult to focus at all!
I’m really close to finishing this last scene. I think I’ll pause for lunch and since I’m feeling so uncomfortable, and then try to finish the scene later.
***
I finished writing the book!
It’s 10,000 words over!
Now I have to edit!
Only one of those statements is a happy one.
However, I’m pretty happy with the way the book turned out. I think the writing is the best I can do at this point in my writing career.
The act of consciously trying to focus and deliberately avoiding any distractions seemed to work for me, although I only tried it for about 2 hours this morning. It was very mentally exhausting, so I’ll need to practice it more. I’ll try it when I have to do the blocking and then the writing for the next Regency book.
I thought about trying to start on the editing today, but I think I’ll put that off until tomorrow. I’m not very good at self-editing, and I think I’d rather try to get it done earlier in the day when I have more energy and more ability to focus.
After I finish the editing, I’m curious (and I’m dreading) how many hours it took me to write this book.
Since I didn’t do my Regency nonfiction reading or my Japanese flashcards during my breaks like I did yesterday, I’ll do them now. I think it’ll feel good to get some of that non-writing stuff done. I keep wanting to make it a habit to do some of that everyday and it just never seems to get done since I was trying to finish this book as fast as possible.
Outlining: time spent: 0
Blocking: time spent: 31 minutes
Editing: Time spent: 0
Writing: Time spent: 2 hours, 45 minutes
Writing: Total number of words: 1787 words
Writing: Overall writing speed: 549 words per hour
Time spent doing other writing-related business: 39 minutes
My takeaway for today: Practice more focused undistracted work.
My second takeaway for today: I need to be better about making sure I have lots of monsters in my battle list so that I won’t be tempted to stop when the monsters are all gone.
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