Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Tuesday Challenge - if you can practice while distracted you are well trained

I'm very distracted - my younger son is in town for the holidays - my elder son is still working out the kinks in his family - I have clients who are in a state of crisis - my house is messy and folks are coming to visit who haven't been before and who I don't know well (and you know what that means) - the tree is up and that make me feel much the same as when my nails are freshly polished - like everything is prone to insecurity.
When I sat down on my cushion this morning and drew a Lojong slogan card to contemplate it said 'If you can practice while distracted you are well trained'. Right.
Today, before my youngest son comes, and before I make up yet another shopping list (food), and before I check out the two sets of gifts yet to give (Canadian Babes gathering and Gomish- go here to find out about this holiday) I am going to work on my novel. Although chaos is reigning supreme I will practice my craft - I have an idea that I want to get down while it is hot in my brain pan.
Today's challenge is to carefully and fearlessly examine what excuses you come up with to not practice your craft. When you do that - decide that you will say the following words out loud:
"Even though I am distracted by X, I will sit down and write (draw, paint, create) for an hour. I will ignore my distractions by gently bringing my focus back to my work. All my distractions will wait for me or hopefully get lost!"
Let me know how it goes...

10 comments:

Mary@GigglesandGuns said...

Wonderful quote. I'm putting it on my wall now. AND I'm off to write and schedule posts for the rest of the week. That's a start, right?
Thanks Jan.

Jan Morrison said...

Thanks Mary - I just finished about an hour and a half. I'm VERY satisfied.
good luck with your stuff!

Anonymous said...

Jan - What a good way to discipline oneself! I've got to do that. And an hour is the right amount of time, too....

Anita Saxena said...

That's how I started my day today. I ignored all the crazy stuff and wrote first and THEN I entered the realm of crazy.

Hart Johnson said...

I STRONGLY recommend writing sprints for this. A committed hour where you start and stop with the timer is the most AMAZING thing i've found for turning off the distractions. I will send you an FB invite. We have 3 planned today (and tomorrow, and the next day)--if you could do even ONE a day, you would be golden, yes? (not that you aren't already golden)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

If you mean distracted as in the TV is on and the music is playing and my computer is on, then yes, I can write distracted!
Hope you accomplished a lot today.

Carol Kilgore said...

Good for you!

I can write while I'm distracted. I cannot write if I have too many other things that must be done that take up all my time. Then I can't even think about writing or I make myself crazy.

Happy New Year!

Jan Morrison said...

Just to clarify - for me distractions are either internal or external - both count when I'm trying to focus on my work. I can actually write through most external distractions including being interrupted by someone asking where the vanilla is, to the phone ringing etc... Internal distractions, on the other hand, cause me to leap up and clean the fridge because someone is coming for dinner who may inspect it - right in the middle of a scene that is fresh in my mind. Those are the tricky distractions. Where I must say to myself, 'self, this will wait, or disappear - get back to writing'.

Faith Pray said...

Good words, Jan! I have spent the last two weeks with my novel on "pause." Much of my entire life as a mom of little ones is distraction at this stage, which makes it so easy to excuse myself. But I can't do that! Some might argue that it doesn't really matter - I'm not published, I'm self-employed with no profits to speak of. But I answer to myself - and I'm the one who suffers when I give up my writing discipline. Time to buckle in and get to it!

Ann said...

Wonderful advice Jan. I will be giving that a try this very day!

Your state of house sounds very similar to mine! Just can't seem to get the holiday chaos sorted! HeyHo.

Well I hope you and yours have a wonderful ringing in of the New Year. May 2012 bring you many joys and fulfillment!