Modern always-connected life wasn’t designed for the professional or creative who needs to focus. It’s almost as if there is an internet-based conspiracy to interfere with your most important work.
Kate I. Foley, an impossibly-young fiction author and poet, captures it perfectly: “You’re typing a short story, or an article, or some other writing project, when suddenly — ping! You get a text message… all of a sudden you’ve forgotten what you were typing. Instead of trying to remember what you were going to say next … you realize you have three new e-mails…. Pretty soon, you’ve spent two hours on Facebook… and you still can’t remember what you were typing earlier that day.”
Just now, as I was writing this, my smart watch tapped me on the wrist to let me know that my credit card payment was due and my order from Etsy had shipped. And I completely lost my train of thought.
So, I don’t know what I was about to say, but I do know the answer to this problem. Turn it off. All of it. The first advice I give folks who participate in my monthly Work On It Day is to disconnect from the internet the device you are using to write or design or brainstorm. If you must be online to get the thing done, use the Do Not Disturb or Focus feature on your PC or Mac.
Put your phone on silent. Set your doorbell camera to snooze. If you wear a smart watch, take the damned thing off! Make your intensive work sessions the one place and time in your life where you disconnect from the online world completely.
The internet can be your friend when you’re researching, publishing, or promoting. But when you want to get some focused work done, it’s more often a hostile saboteur.
