Day 644: Breathing to try to combat procrastination/distraction

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I had a couple flare-ups while working today, and each time I had to wait until it passed before I could start work again. As a result, I was pretty distracted during my writing time, and I also didn’t get a whole lot done.

I couldn’t do anything about the flare-ups and needing to wait them out, but I really should do something about managing my distraction. I probably just need to practice more, but I feel bad about days like today when my attention is jumping all over the place.

It took a while for me to get my attention back on my work, but I managed to stop what I was doing to procrastinate, and I closed my eyes and did some deep breathing for a minute. It really worked to help me calm my thoughts, which were jumping from topic to topic.

I took that time to remember that I need to practice my deep focus, and then I went back to work. I think it worked pretty well, but the problem is snapping myself out of whatever mental state I drift into when I’m distracted and procrastinating.

I decided to try setting an alarm on my watch to remind myself to stop and breathe every hour. I’m a little worried it will get really annoying, but I have to try something, especially with how I’m doing today. I have to try to knock myself out of that weirdly focused-yet-unfocused state I go to when I’m procrastinating.

***

The breathing was actually quite nice. Even when I finally managed to settle down and focus more, the alarm wasn’t disrupting, and I felt a lot better after my minute of breathing (I used the breathing app on my watch).

I still didn’t get a lot done because I had some research to do for the scene I was writing, so it took over 3 hours to write 800 words. But maybe I will do better the next time I feel the need to procrastinate.

I also just have to keep practicing deep focus so that I get better at it and don’t get distracted.

Also, I got about 5 hours of work done today! That’s a huge improvement, especially considering I still had a bit of discomfort while I was working.

Regency series:

Editing: Time spent: 33 minutes

Writing: Time spent: 3 hours, 21 minutes

Writing: Total number of words: 867 words

Writing streak: 123 days

Blocking: time spent: 0

Blocking streak: 117 days

Hawaii series:

Outlining: time spent: 0 (Wish I hadn’t procrastinated so much, I might have had time to do a little work on this.)

My takeaway for today: Try setting an alarm to remind myself to breathe once an hour so I can knock myself out of distraction/procrastination mode.

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