30-minutes
Tuesday, April 13th, 2010
Image courtesy of laffy4k from Flickr
So many people I know want to start blogs, want to improve their blog or want to just write more for their blog. Unfortunately, most of us have days that are packed to the brim, we’re taking phone calls, tweeting, facebooking, planning our calendars, checking emails and putting together task lists on top of doing all the actual work…basically, we are insanely busy. How do I know that we’re all this busy? I see the tweets, read the emails and have the conversations about how little time we have left in our days. With days like this, things like writing, which for most are secondary, end up getting pushed to the back-burner. But, this does not have to be the case! Writing is not easy, but by taking 30 minutes every day out of your schedule to work on writing, it can be made much easier. How can you do this?
First, schedule 30 minutes in each of your day, just like you would schedule a meeting, for your writing time. Plan it out ahead, that way you can’t cancel it or avoid it. Do not let yourself skip it! Then, during that time, close all browsers, twitter applications, silence your phone, close your email, do whatever you have to do to eliminate all distractions for those 30 minutes. Once you’ve done this, start writing. Jot down notes about everything and anything that you want to talk about. Then, write down some things you don’t want to talk about (knowing the don’t want can help with the do want). Finally, go back through what you think you want to talk about and add more detailed notes on the topics that you can. Keep this as a constantly available document (either on your computer or on real paper) so that anytime you come up with a new idea, you can just jot it down and keep it for the future.
At first, it will be tough to take that 30 minutes, but when you see the results you get from concentrated writing time, you will realize how worth it 30-minutes can be.
Oh, and if you’re wondering why this post only has a one word title, read my stand against blog titles.
Sight – What do you look at every day? Walls? Windows? A picture of your significant other or maybe you don’t even notice… What your eyes take in feeds your mind, and creates motivation. If you are having trouble focusing on a task, or breaking through a mental block, try changing your view and see what new surroundings can do. Each day, I sit in a closet. Seriously. Our condo is small, so my office is actually the closet of the second bedroom converted by my hubby. So I stare at the back of a closet, and the photos of my hubby, my bridesmaids and me at the wedding and to the right, my to-do white board. As nice as I have made it, sometimes, I need a little different view. When that’s the case, I will either take my work outside, or just take a quick walk to jump-start my visualization.
Smell & Sound – Although these are very different senses, when I need motivation and a refresh, they are always accomplished in one fell swoop – at the beach! The noise of the waves, the birds and the people combined with the salty smell, my brain almost can’t handle the changes that it creates in my motivation. My favorite beaches to visit when I need some help? Either San Clemente or Dana Point.



