Comments on: Don’t Distract Me!

By: Amie

Amie — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:56:03 +0000

Supposedly, a less cluttered home page is also better for your computer--makes the Interwebs load faster or some such nonsense.

As for the types of things that distract me, I--ooh look, a seagull!

;)

By: Katharine Swan

Katharine Swan — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 01:01:31 +0000

Email and Internet are my big distractions, too -- and I imagine they will be most writers', for much the same reasons. I'm online for writing and research, and my email is open 99 percent of the time. I can't tell you how many times I've been researching something for a project, thought "Hey that's interesting" about something related, and an hour later I find myself still surfing the 'Net. Or how many times I've been working on a project, gotten an email from another client (or even from Facebook), and 30 minutes later finally got back to the original project.

As for fixing them... Working toward better mental discipline is the only real solution I can think of. It's hard to close email entirely, and nearly impossible to stay off the Internet altogether when I'm working. I just need to have the perseverence to NOT LOOK when my computer announces that I have new email, or save links and wait until later to go off on my little tangents.

By: Natalia Maldonado

Natalia Maldonado — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:17:35 +0000

Checking my emails constantly used to be a big time suck for me. When I finally got a blackberry it helped so much, because you know those times when you've done everything you can and you're just waiting on that one source to get back to you? I was always glued to my computer at those times, and now I can take care of other things without worry.

When I really need to write without distractions I put my phone on silent and turn off the volume on my computer so I can't hear the ding of mail coming in. I use my email checking addiction to my advantage--no checking on it till I've accomplished xyz.

By: Poetic Shutterbug

Poetic Shutterbug — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:28:22 +0000

For me being online is a huge distraction with emails, facebook and news. The problem is I am online when I am writing. I am always being distracted and I find it difficult to manage.