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What thoughts pull at your mind like crazed Capuchin monkeys interrupting your focus? Are they to dos? Should dos? Want to dos? Have to dos?
Finding a way to keep you life together is challenging for those of us that deal with attention issues, flights of ideas and the intense urge to be busy doing something. Even if you don’t have organic distraction issues, information overload, and multiple demands can distract and overwhelm the most even-keeled person. In order to calm my mind, so that I can focus and write, without the thought-monkeys pulling at my sleeve, I use a three part system. It may work for your thought-monkeys too. 1. I use Todoist (http://todoist.com) This is a free to do list app that will sync across your devices. I use this to keep track of all the little tasks that can distract me knowing that they have to be done. I enter my daily, weekly, and monthly, semi-annual, and annual tasks. I set the application for sounds and visual reminders. 2. I use a vertical weekly paper planner. I know it sounds archaic to those of you who are in love with your electronic calendars. After trying to use several different electronic planners, I understand that my brain can not visualize and process electronic calendars. I also use my planner as a work log and diary of my time. When I feel as if I have not accomplished anything flipping back through my planner reminds me of what I have accomplished and what is possible. For those of you that have a business, planners can be used to as supportive documentation if you ever face a tax audit. 3. I keep up with entries! Yes, I stop when I get when a reminder notice, email invitation, or think of something that I want, or need to do, and make an entry in the system. That postcard reminding me that the dog needs a check up? I set a date to make the appointment. If the office is open, I call right then and make the appointment.
Do I fall off the keeping up with things wagon. Yes, more often than I would like to admit. So what do I do? A brain dump. I grab my spiral notebook and make a list of everything that needs to be done, scheduled, etc. I don’t try and assign the items any kind of priority, I just get them out of my head. When I can’t think of anything else, I go back through the list with my planner and Todist open I enter dates in my calendar and set reminders in Todoist.
Is this redundant? Is it really that hard to keep track of my life? Yes. Distraction issues, impulsiveness, and hyperactivity are a wicked combination. Using this system helps me focus. I don’t worry that I am going to forget to pick up the kids, or the milk or put out the trash. When I sit down to write I am not worried that I should/need to be doing anything else but writing. What system do you use? Do you have a system?
My desk monkey reminds me that I the only thing I should be doing is writing.
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Tag Archives: Writing
Help- My Brain is Full!
Koi Pond National Arboretum 2011
My brain is full. I don’t think that I am only one with a full brain. I think that most of us live like this now, whether we have organic distraction issues or not. My brain feels like the fish in the video, snapping up everything, and anything.
The world is full of shiny objects, any and all of them can trigger a desire to write a story. The young girl at the library focused on her cell phone, ignoring the eight-month old at her feet? That is a story. The note I found in the park “I spank you car please to call may (sic)” with a phone number? The two old dudes arguing loudly over a woman in the library? Yep- all stories waiting to be told.
I pick up objects, print out news stories, take pictures, and collect dialogue like a pack-rat on cocaine. As a kid it drove my mom crazy. What the heck do I do with all these bits and pieces of inspiration and observations?
I talked before about my first love- spiral notebooks. But spiral notebooks can be awkward to carry around, so when I leave the house my spiral notebook stays home. When I am out and about I use Evernote (http://evernote.com).
Evernote is an amazing application that lets you save everything, an endless spiral notebook for your phone. If you are not using it, you should be, and they don’t pay me to say that. Using Evernote I can take pictures, record sounds, type, or dictate a note about what I have seen or heard.
So how do I sort these images, clips, random thoughts, observations, scraps, and whims? First, I use letter size flat box files. Like this:
Letter size flat file boxes are not expensive, they can be labeled pretty easily, and stack on shelves. They are available in different colors so if you wanted to organize by color you could. They are portable. Each novel gets a separate box. Short Stories and Ideas for Future Works each have a box.
When I have things that are too big to photograph like maps, old postcards, prints, programs, or more tactile souvenirs from research trips, I stash them in the project box. When I am working on a project, I can pull it down and go through what I have tucked away. I print out photos from research trips and print them on contact sheets.
Sorting through the box lets me immerse myself in the details of my story, reminds me why I wanted to write it, and grounds me when I feel like the words are just there, fluttering out of reach.
Will I ever live long enough to tell all these stories?
I really hope I do. But if for some reason I don’t live to 120, when they go through my things, and find all the random stuff I have picked up and taken pictures of, at least now they will know why.
Be a kid again. Pick things up. Write a story.