Happy Friday everyone. I’d like to introduce you to my new best friend who spends his days sitting on my virtual desktop.
Isn’t he cute?
Don’t be fooled. He’s a villainous task master. But he keeps me productive.
Don’t worry. I haven’t lost my mind. The orange is the icon for a Mac ap called Concentrate. When I turn it on, it locks out my internet and email account and anything else I don’t have the self-control to avoid when I get stuck while writing. Or not just stuck. Sometimes while writing I’ll want to search for a better word or research an element, so I’ll log onto thesaurus.com or google the element and before I know it I’ve completely lost my train of thought.
Of course, I could just click the orange then click done, and voila, I’m back in, but I’m resisting the temptation.
In fact, I called the orange my friend, but I like to think of him as my arch nemesis. When you engage the ap, you can set it to silence or any number of sounds for a length of time of your choice. I set it to “tick, tick, tick” for 60 minutes.
I know, I know…I thought it would drive me crazy, but it doesn’t.
It’s like a ticking bomb, spurring me to rescue my heroine from danger before the bad guys get the upper hand. Then every fifteen minutes this male computer voice whispers, “You’re doing great. Keep going!”
It sounds so creepy that it makes me laugh every time. I think of it as the villain goading me, laughing sarcastically.
Highly motivating when writing suspense. Ah the games we writers play!
Your Turn: Do you use any tricks or rewards to keep you on task?
P.S. If you missed my special post yesterday, and want to do some shopping for your Valentine’s reading, scroll down or click older posts. I’ve included some valuable coupon codes for extra savings.
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I just make up my mind to stay off the Internet. It usually works. Sometimes, I turn off the wifi on the computer…it’s like the orange, I know I can turn it back on if I want, but I seem to work better when it’s off.
Yup, tried that, and probably will go back to that strategy once my free “try it out time” has expired, but it’s been a cool way to keep track of how many “solid” hours I actually write. 🙂
Your orange reminds me of the character,” Annoying Orange’. My boys love him! Me not so much.
jennydtipton@gmail.com
LOL, sounds like Barney when my kids were little 🙂
Cute idea, Sandra….lol! We do need things to keep us on task …. not just writers. I find that I am on task for my exercise walks IF I record it each day that I do walk. Happy weekend to all!
I should try that with my other exercises. I used to do it and got out of the habit. Hmmm, might explain why I’ve been so lax. My dog, of course, won’t let me miss the walks. 🙂
What will they think of next? LOL! Obviously technology has made us all highly distractable. My surefire way to keep me on track is to turn the computer off and use the archaic pen and paper method of writing. The only thing I can click then is the tip of my ballpoint pen. LOL
Oh, and that’s my favorite way to write, if only it didn’t take me twice as long to type it up later!! My daughter used to type my pages up for me, before she got married and had a baby, but I’m happy to have the grandbaby!!!