As easy as writing may seem, it can become a headache searching for ideas to complete the task at hand. Some may blame this period of time on a common symptom called writers block, but many times that isn’t the case. Distractions make our job as writers even harder than it has to be.
Electronic devices and other distractions such as unexpected company, television, social networking, children, and our significant other can be reasons why we are slothful in getting our work done.
Someone may say, “I don’t consider any of the things named in this article a distraction”. Well, if you are involved in any of these activities while work is going on and you find yourself fighting to get your work done, these things are indeed a distraction for you.
How can we eliminate distractions while writing? Based on personal experience, you have to pull yourself away from the given distraction. For example, sometimes I find myself over my head in projects I have to do.
Somehow I find the time to check my Facebook and I wind up on there for 3 hours.
No work done; just checking up on friends and family. While that is all well and good, the bills have to get paid! If we see that the Internet will be a distraction for us, we need not to use it until we need to post an article or if we need to email our client(s) for clarification on an assignment. Unplug the connection to the ISP and disable the computer’s connection if need be; anything to get the work completed!
As for the electronic devices and having others around that will hinder our work, the device and the person (s) have to take a backseat to our work so both parties will be pleased with the content.
A good way to be sure we don’t have access to the devices is to lock them up and give them to a trusted party who won’t grant us access until the task is complete. Setting up a private area for work where others have no access helps to get rid of distractions also.
When writing something important while distracted, we began to write things that are totally irrelevant to the topic at hand and the results will show. Only if the distraction is eliminated will we realize exactly what we are doing and get ourselves together. These reasons, and more, are why it is important to limit distractions while writing.