When I am up against a deadline and I absolutely, definitely have to get on with my work, I use a few tactics to force myself to concentrate:
- Switch off email. I don’t start Outlook (or if I do, I disable all the notifications that tell me I have new mail).
- Isolate myself. I use Bose noise-canceling headphones but don’t plug them into anything. The silence really is golden.
- Greed and guilt. I remind myself how much money I’m getting paid for a particular assignment and how ashamed I will be if I miss the deadline. This actually works sometimes.
- Stop with the blog already. When I’m pressed for time, distractions like blogging and hoovering become very compelling. Knowing this makes it easier to resist.
- Get up early. 6am is the most productive time of day for writing. No distractions. It also feels more virtuous than staying up late with work.
- Little treats. I bribe myself: ‘Matthew, if you write another 500 words, you can have a cup of tea and a biscuit.’
- Chunking. Setting a timer or alarm clock for 15, 20, 30, 50 minutes and doing nothing but writing until it goes off and then taking a break seems like a good way to make progress.
- Go full screen. Switching Word into full screen mode (from the view menu) eliminates all distractions but the piece I’m working on.
- Shitty first draft. Splitting the work into distinct writing and editing phases breaks the job down nicely and it takes off some of the pressure to ‘get it right first time’.
- Change location. Sometimes, if I’m really struggling to get started, taking a laptop or my notebook to a cafe and scribbling out something there – a fresh new location – is a good way to jolt-start an assignment.
[Update 10 March 2010: there's a newer version of this article with lots more tips: 22 ways to stay focused on writing.]
Cartoon Copyright (c) The New Yorker, via CartoonBank.com.
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{ 85 comments… read them below or add one }
Great bit of advice, Matthew.
I laughed when I read the “treat” thing. I was thinking of a bit of candy or maybe an ice cream. Tea and biscuits must be a treat in the UK. Here, however, I think someone would probably have to make me eat it.
You misspelled “cna” by the way.
Always kidding you.
Thanks for your help a few days back!
I have to agree with that. I worked on freelance for a few gaming magazines to pay tuition over the years. Points 3 and 5 resonate especially with me.
Great suggestions. Here’s one more: Start in the middle…or the end…then back and fill. Sometimes a great lede springs into mind immediately; more often it doesn’t. Why pressure yourself to make it happen? Instead–to mis-apply a phrase–write what you know. Tell the anecdote, quote the quote, get to the crux of the matter. And trust (this is important) that the rest will fall gracefully into place.
Very similar to my approach for getting design assignments going. Must be the same part of the brain that needs coaxing.
good advice.
however, i have to disagree with
#2, because music really helps me forgetting everything around me
#3, because if you are not satisfied with your job, or having a hard time, this can be a kill switch
#5, because some people (like me) have problems getting up early. if i get up before 7am it takes me almost an hour to get my morning stuff done. if i wake up at 8am, i can do it in 20 minutes.
and stating that working late is not virtuous just isn’t true. the dark, the silence, noone to distract you. all good arguments on working close to midnight.
the article is still a good read.
Great ideas. I use some of those techniques, and have found a few new ones, too. Great article.
I nice way to stop editing yourself during the first draft is to turn off your computer screen. Now you have no choice but to just keep typing. (Don’t forget to save, though. Find the keyboard shortcut before you switch the screen off.)
Bill.
I dont really do any writing, but can relate to the tips a lots when I want to get something done.
Even more so with point 5, I’ve been trying to train myself in to the habit of getting up at 7am every morning in order to gain an hour or so every day of quality time to do things.
If you’re on a Mac, Write Room is a new, “distraction-free” word processor. It’s kind of light-weight, but I think that’s the point. It’s quite elegant, and if they had a screenplay template, it’d be perfect.
Nice, i always had problems to write (code) because of distractions, right now i should be coding, but i m posting this
I ll try to follow your tips, starting right now.. i m just gonna smoke a cigaret after fixing the bug the showed up yesterday.. hope i dont die from abstinence…
I pretty much have the exact same Top 10 list in my head — it’s good to see I’m not alone
I find it better listening to music. I listen to heavy metal, but some trance / dance always does the trick for me.
I actually have a pair of the noise cancelling headphones from Bose. I only thought they were good from blocking out the wife. “Shes talking click… Shes not talking click… Shes talking click… Shes not talking” well you get the point. I think that is a great idea for those “I’m easily distracted” moments.
Thanks a lot. Simple but very useful. = )
This also applies to programming/coding.
Hello!I am from Russia and I want to be a writer.
Thank you, How to concentrate on writing- very good advices.
The silence tip is a good one, although I take a slightly different approach. I usually put on classical piano music, Chopin is a favorite. It really calms you down and helps to focus as long as it is not too loud and intense.
This is one great piece of guideline to follow. In fact there are a few more to add on, such as, “Disconnect entirely from the Internet”, and “Put a small note on your desktop”. I’m sure all these little things help. Well, the main thing now is for me to “Stop Blogging“.
I found that having a television in the same room, whether it’s on or off, is going to cause problems too.
Aside from that, agreed 100%, especially regarding early mornings.
I write for a living. For me the trick is to start early and have a sleep in the middle of the day. All of the suggestions listed work although on newspapers noise is the norm rather than the exception. Now I think I could write in any environment, no matter how noisy.
The trick, mentioned by nearly everyone, is to get it down. Hammer away until you have finished the first draft and then go back and edit.
I would add one rule.
Tell your partner that if you are stopped for any reason death will ensue. It takes me about twenty minutes to seriously be in writing mode. Someone asking me ‘just’ to put out the garbage loses me forty minutes of high speed writing. And puts me in a rage. This is not clearly understood by non-writers.
On point number eight, I go a step further and use Google Writely ( http://www.writely.com ) in full screen mode ( F11 ). The interface is much cleaner, less distraction. It’s also a bit more cheery.
My tip – I write long pieces of text in notepad. No Formatting of anykind, just to get the words out. Otherwise, you’d be amazed at how much time I can spend determining font size, margins, line spacing, etc..etc..etc.
When I was in in college, I would sometimes have to just “copy con bob.txt” if I was really really despearate. Nothing makes me write like a blank DOS window.
Now that I’ve a mac, I just open textpad and write.
When I was writing my dissertation I worked initially in MS Notepad and save formatting until the end. Working in Word I found that I got distracted fiddling around with page settings, fonts, bullet points etc.
Also, mindlessly changing the point size on every heading on every page felt like a bit of treat once the hard part was over.
Re: #6 It was tea an Jaffa Cakes for me.
Great list! I’ve also been helped by scheduling specific time to write — it’s harder to put off when I’ve cleared the decks specifically so I have nothing to do except write.
Owen Lystrup, tea and biscuits are a *right*, not a treat
Why not plug the noise cancelling headphones into something? I’m still a college student (Junior at USC), but our pressures to complete writing assignments are pretty intense as well. Leaving the headphones unplugged lets you hear the silence, and eventually the pulse in your ears starts to resonate through the headphones. Putting on a slow, monotonous, and relaxed song (with no words, of course) is by far the best thing to have cycling non-stop while you write. After a while, you don’t hear the music, it just becomes part of your writing atmosphere. I’ve been able to hammer out 5 great pages of writing (about 1300 words) in only 45 minutes this way.
I guess, after all that beating around the bush, my advice is, just create an atmosphere that you feel most focused in, whether it’s compelte silence or through using something to block out all distractions.
WriteRoom is indeed fantastic, thx very much for the link
http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom
Nice compilation of ideas. Esp 2, 5 and 6 work great with me.
I’m glad I happened here. I’m currently authoring my second book, and I’m finding it very hard to get started on a fresh, new chapter (that always seems to be the case).
I’m a music lover, so I find putting on some of my favorite classical or choral music really helps. Then again, I sometimes find myself reveling the harmonies
For a full-screen, distraction free writing environtment, check out WriteRoom
(http://www.hogbaysoftware.com/product/writeroom)
This has increased my writing productivity like you wouldn’t believe, I really recommend it.
Getting started is often the hard part. If I’m feeling reluctant, I take the path of least resistance by starting with a little editing on yesterday’s writing. This is like a singer warming up on scales. Within 10 minutes, I’m usually warmed up, fully engaged, and ready to roll.
those are some great tips and they dont have to be limited to writing.
The same approach works actually when writing code. “C’mon – fix another bug and I’ll get you a nice can of beer”
brilliant
Ah yes, if only we could make the rest of our lives go ‘full screen’, removing all unnecessary distractions and face a fresh crisp new page.
Good tips.. I’m not a writer, but I’ve had to use some techniques like the above when doing other kinds of projects. The only ones I disagree with are #2 and #5: #2 because the silence would drive me batty, and #5 because I’m a night owl by nature and find that my brain tends to work much better at night than in my zombified morning state. Otherwise, though, it’s a good list.
I’ll bribe myself too. Finish coding this particular function and then i’ll let you have a cigarette break !
It works
Related to #7 (Chunking), I use the 15-5-3 method. Here is how it works. Work on whatever task (writing, coding, etc.) for 15 minutes straight. No interruptions allowed. Then reward yourself with a 5 minute break to do whatever you like. Then repeat the process 3 times per hour. If you follow the plan, you should get 45 minutes of solid output for every hour of elapsed time. I find this method to be very effective for me. Especially since I am easily distracted. But if I know that there will be a break, I can concentrate. You will also find that the more you do this, the 15 mintues become 20, 30, …. resulting in more output.
I do all of these things! All but the noise cancelling headphones trick. THAT idea is especially golden.
Excellent, excellent post!
Excellent advice; thank you, Matthew! I have definitely found #6 (bribes) and #7 (chunking with breaks) to be helpful in my own experience. Regarding breaks, I find that it’s helpful to actually get up and get the blood flowing: take a brisk walk, do a few sets of pushups, etc.
“Shitty First Draft” is a phrase famously connected with Annie LaMott (Bird by Bird, notably) and you are remiss for not crediting her.
Rather than try to reply to each of these comments individually, I’d like to say thank you to everyone who wrote, commented or linked. I’ve made a list of new tips and posted that.
One small thing. Thanks to JaneB for pointing me to Annie LaMott. I haven’t read anything by her or heard of her but I guess I must have picked up the phrase ‘Shitty first draft’ in the ether somewhere and used it without realising the context. I’m going to have a look at her books now.
I’ve just implemented a Java version of WriteRoom, called JDarkRoom:
http://www.duncanjauncey.com/jdarkroom
Very nice article!
But I do have to disagree with the early morning stuff. It takes me a while to wake up if I have less than 8 hours of sleep, and I enjoy working late so 6am is just screwed. =P
But I liked it. Found it from Digg.
…Logan
Practice and practice again. It’s the only way to mastery. Write anything every day. Don’t think about it too much, just start writing. It makes wonders for me.
4. Stop with the blog already.
heh nice blog.
You’d look very strange using Bose noise-cancelling headphones in a pub! Anyway, if it works…
(advices #10 & #2)
Just kidding… Good tips.
)
Imagine a man kicks in your door, puts a gun to your head and says “Write!”.
You’ll write.
BB
it’s obvious to give tips for writing..
every body is different !
it would be better to say :
these are the tips working on me !?
my self i liked them but instead of taking it as it
i will make my very personal tips..
something that may work with me
thx
Cool man….i will too try out these things
But i am not sure whether they will work for me or not