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+63 (917) 503-4874I’ve heard bloggers writing a single blog post for two to four hours. Boasting aside, I only write mine an hour or two each.
No, I’m not a natural writer. In fact, I’m still having those “Dramatic pause” every minute or so looking for the right word to express my point (That’s because English is not my first language.)
What’s my secret?
Focus.
Do nothing but write the article.
But how do you grab hold of that focus till you finish the article?
Here are my five tips:
1. Turn Off That Music
Do not lower the volume, turn it off!
I’ve had bad experiences with music when writing. In my own experience this is the number one thing that always keeps me out of focus when writing.
The last minute you were writing, the next minute you find yourself singing and swaying with the music.
Now who’s with me?
2. Close Your Email
This one is a killer. Tons of people are in to this. Tons of people write with their email accounts open. And yes, tons of people are distracted with their email accounts open.
It just snowballs you when an email arrive in the middle of you working on an article. After you’ve replied to it, you see another one waiting, you reply to it again, and so on and so on.
Email is the one of the internet’s biggest time whore, try to schedule things up and make a habit of checking your email.
3. MSN, YM, Skype and AIM Is A No No!
If your IM client has over 100 contacts piled up, you can imagine how hard it is to focus on writing with your IM client open. Heck, you can’t even do any simple work.
It’s just too irritating. Especially when someone adds you and asks personal stuff and that. Well, you can’t just close the client or block the guy because he might classify you as “Rude” and tell the world about it. Argh.
4. Close The Windows, Lock The Door
If you have kids mingling around your house, I might have hit the bulls eye on this one.
As for me, I have a brother and a sister – and they won’t stop bugging me everytime. I can’t blame them about that though, I’m sure I did that to my dad before too.
5. Cut Your Internet Connection
With just one click, you could easily get lost on what you’re doing. Especially when you have the StumbleUpon toolbar installed or any other toolbar that with one single click, it will take you to another website.
The solution, cut the connection.
There are days were our connection is a bit laggy, we can’t browse or do virtually anything online. I’ve observed that I write faster on these days, because often times in the middle of writing an article, I recall a website I haven’t read in months.
What’s Loosing Your Focus?
Like in any other article, I want you to get involved.
How about you? What’s the single biggest thing that keeps loosing your focus when writing? Or any work you always do.
wow man I could serouisly relate to every thing you say I have 2 little brothers, and im always listening to music, I am always waiting for an email lol. I never noticed it until now but your right. Thanks man this article is very help full.
Carl,
I agree with 4 of these 5 suggestions. I’ve found that music helps me focus and stay “jazzed” as I write. This is especially true if I am cranking through boring writing, which I need to do from time to time.
~ John
Probably low relaxing music John. More like how Starbucks did it ;-)
I think for me it’s the multiple tabbed browsers in Firefox. I always seem to be doing 10 things at once!
And the email too. That’s a killer!
Cut the connection buddy ;-)
Everything is right… No.5 is VERY hard to do… THis is my biggest problem..
Actually I agree with Mr John Rhodes. Especially when you are doing article marketing. I just don’t listen to my favorite Dashboard Confessionals because it robs my focus.. ^^
Anyway I think one has to have a box of chocolate in his room for his thoughts to flow incessantly… and a water of course.
For me no 4 I think is one of my biggest problem, I need some kind of workplace that is free from any obstructions :(
good list..
completely agreed with the fifth rule, most of the times i click somewhere when i am writing and get lost on what i was doing before…
Whether writing for myself or for a client I have found different projects often require different tactics.
Some days I’m just in the zone and I think a bomb could go off and I’d just keep writing. Other days require silence. On the days when silence is actually distracting, I dig out my instrumental CDs – John Tesh and other quiet, lyrical types of things. The idea is calming and gentle background noise with no beat or words. I also use the random setting on my CD player to keep the music from getting predictable.
The Internet connection is a great idea! Disconnecting from the world does seem to allow me to focus better. I have slow dial-up connection. Using an online thesaurus is much slower than my trusty paperback one and it’s too easy to stray into doing something else.
Finally, if I have a blog article that just won’t come, I save it as a draft and come back to it another day.
Now that’s a killer.
I’ve never tried to freelance though, but on how you explain it, that’s a bummer.
Yup, I have that one open too when writing.
Hi carl.
Actually if i do listen to music while i do my work, i would use some kind of relaxation type music or even classical turned to a background level.
And yes checking email all the time does drain away the time, for me i like to a million things at once too, as i think someone mentioned.
My biggest productivity loss is going on youtube. Another tip mentioned to me was to get a count down timer, elec or mechanical it doesnt matter.
And set it for say 40 minutes and start writing or working on your site and do that task till the timer goes off, nothing else.
steve
Yeah thats pretty cool! If you only allow yourself to focus with one thing, you can make it through writing even though you do not have a pen twin when you were born. I salute with this article