Writing

Wherein Reverb 10 continues....

December 2 Writing.
What do you do each day that doesn’t contribute to your writing — and can you eliminate it?
(Author: Leo Babauta)


Ok, truthfully?  Most of my day very, very effectively gets in the way of my writing. A usable answer to this question would require a time log.  And I'm not sure a time log done anytime in the month of December would be "normal" enough to help any.


Hmmm.....Is it true that I would have to record every second to get the right information?  Is it true that December is so radically abnormal that even attempting to answer this question would be an exercise in futility?  Or is this the work of Distraction Monster, It's Too Hard Monster, and You Don't Have Time Monster?


I suspect the latter.


Possible workarounds?


Work first on reducing known timesucks:  too much television, too much Facebook, too much Twitter, too many email lists that I don't read that just make finding the email I want harder, random unproductive Internet surfing, recreational shopping, etc.


There are only three shows a week that I absolutely demand that I get to keep.  Big Bang Theory, NCIS, and NCIS Los Angeles.  Everything else, I can either skip entirely, or just have it on while I do other stuff.


Facebook -- Probably need to weed out some of the stuff I follow.  My newsfeed has gotten overwhelming.  


Twitter -- Turn off the beeps.  Or just log out of TweetDeck entirely when I'm working.  Definitely stop leaving it up all day.  Ditto for the Facebook and the email.


Email -- Oh the email!  First, I have too many email addys.  Need to figure out what to do about that.   I'm also subscribed to way too many lists that I don't read.  Including a couple that have good information but I should delete them anyway because the gloom and doom approach rarely fails to stress me out.  It just isn't worth it anymore. (if you know of a POSITIVE source of feng shui information, please let me know in the comments!)


Random surfing -- Hmmmm....this one will be a real pickle because so much of what I read could be termed research for my Thing.  Maybe I could make a deal with myself to pick a particular number of articles a day that look the most helpful and actually really process and take notes and ID action items.  


Recreational shopping -- Stopping this would save time AND money.  Keep a running shopping list.  Try to do necessary errands during the week and start writing on Saturday mornings.


Make some fun reminders for all of the above.


Okay, all of that SOUNDS doable enough.  We'll see.