Recently my work has shifted a bit from primarily answering questions to primarily writing documentation. The idea being that good documentation will result in fewer questions to answer. I very much enjoy the writing component, although I could do without spending so much time fiddling with little details in Pixelmator.
Writing uses a different part of my brain than troubleshooting and that part of my brain seems to loathe distractions. When something pulls my attention away from my writing it is like someone pulled the emergency break. All forward motion stops abruptly. As someone who can usually go into the zone with a million distractions going on around me, I am finding this to be very frustrating.
I see two possible solutions to this issue. The first is trying to create a bubble of space where I can work without any interruptions. The second is to teach myself how to work with interruptions. I am opting for the latter. I am doing so because distractions are a part of life and in learning to work around them I am building an important life skill. Besides which, I really enjoy some of the distractions in my life.
Some of my favorite distractions include an unexpected call or video chat with my niecelettes*, my cat coming and nuzzling me for attention (ok, this one I have mixed feelings about, but I like it more than it bothers me) or my best friend calling me for a chat. I see all of those as some of the greatest perks of working from home. Well those and getting to wear my pajamas all day.
I have been reading up on strategies for coping with distractions and most of them seem to revolve around creating a distraction-free bubble. Those both bore me and don’t tell me what I want to know. That leaves me to basically make up my own strategies on the fly.
The strategies that have been working for me lately include using a “warm-up” activity to help get me back into the groove. In fact, this post that I am writing is meant to be a warm up for writing I am hoping to start working on in about 15 minutes.
The second is a fairly simple positive reinforcement system. For example, if I do some concentrated writing for X amount of time, I get some sort of treat. More often than not, that treat is spending some time on the couch with my cat. Or if David is home, taking a break to have an actual conversation with him.
Lastly, I sometimes rely on apps like Coffitivity that create ambient background noise that I am then forced to block out. I will take the whys behind this directly from their website:
According to a peer-reviewed study out of the University of Chicago, “A moderate level of ambient noise is conducive to creative cognition.” In a nutshell, this means being a tiny bit distracted helps you be more creative. This is why those AHA moments happen when we’re brushing our teeth, taking a shower, or mowing the lawn! If we’re not focused too much at a task at hand, we come up with awesome stuff. In the coffee shop, the chatter and clatter actually distracts us a tiny bit and allows our creative juices to start flowing. It sounds crazy, but it works!
*I started this blog post yesterday and didn’t get a chance to finish it because my niecelettes called!