Tip: take it offline

It seems like each day there’s more “urgent” demanding my attention at work. Finding quiet time to think, read and write has been a challenge. Perhaps you can relate.

So this past week I started blocking off 8-9 each morning as thinking time. But I’m so used to jumping from one thing to another that it’s hard to focus. Instead of writing a full draft of what I’m working on, I’ll get distracted hunting for examples online or looking up words in the thesaurus.

Sometimes a simpler interface makes all the difference — in this case, a move from keyboard to paper and pen. And to help me stay on track, I set a timer for 10 minutes of “no computer” time. By then I’m in the zone and well on my way.