Quick App Recommendation for Better Focus
This post is part of the vein of thought which includes "No one is going to appear and just give you the free time you need for all those plans you've made." I was listening to one of those podcasts I mentioned last time, when the host plugged an app called Binaural. In the podcast it was used to 'hack' the brain to achieve better relaxation in stressful environments. The specific example at the time was to use the app on airplanes to reduce a spike in heart rate that seemed to have only been caused by the environment. Interested, as I was about to go on a plane ride, I downloaded the app. I'm not sure if the app I link to above is the specific app the podcast was referring to, as there are several with different but similar names, but I tried it out one morning when I sat down to write. I set the Beat Frequency slider within the "Focus (Beta)" range, and adjusted the Tone Frequency slider to somewhere around 270 Hz. With my earbuds in (it needs to have both ears receiving its output with you brain in between), I began to write. Maybe it's a placebo effect (man, I love placebos. I wish I had a whole bowl of placebos right now), but I did notice an incredible upward swing in my productivity. I was focused on writing for the entire length of my session at the computer, with zero interest in distractions and no hemming and hawing and procrastination. What amazes me more is that, with the exception of one weekend day where my thoughts genuinely were not going to settle until I dealt with something else, I had zero trouble dropping whatever was on my mind and setting to my task. Another change I made, a day or two after I started using Binaural, was to completely avoid my phone in the morning. Since my writing time is before work, I was able to start in quiet, pre-dawn hours, eat and drink coffee without getting sucked into the pull-to-refresh world of social media, and sit down with only my internal dialog going. As a bonus, not loading up my phone made it far more likely that my internal dialog was going to be pre-tuned to what I was about to write. I'm not saying that I've been writing 3,000 words a day as a result of these two small changes, but I can say that the following behaviors have been modified:
- Sitting Down Every Day – Even on mornings when I oversleep and am running up against that border between "yes, I have time to write" and "well, you know, I could just get to the office a little early," I have been able to sit down and actually get some solid time in on the story. The minutes may only be 20 or 30 in number, but the quality of them is far improved, and they are part of a better writing habit that has been established (finally)!
- Distraction-Free Writing – Whether it's the tone in my ear serving as a reminder, or truly having my brain hacked by the app, the urge to see what the world is up to while I write, and the strength of those urges, are diminishing, leaving me with high-octane focus on getting my story right, right now.
- Productivity-focused Time – So here's something I wouldn't have expected. Yesterday I had about 7 minutes remaining of my writing time, and was stuck on a detail. I had a feeling that someone was holding an item that may have been in someone else's hand only moments earlier in the scene. Rather than fuss about it, I added a comment to that spot, and kept writing. During the same session, my WiFi signal had crapped out on me, and I needed to look up a word to be sure I was using it correctly. Rather than turn my phone on and check it with my data plan, I just added a comment to the word and reminded myself to look it up later. And kept writing. Either of these things would once have stopped all forward progress and ended on Instagram. Instead I got a lean, mean word count for another handful of moments. When I got to try it on the plane, as I mentioned before, I didn't get that sleepy feeling that I usually do when I try to write in motion. I also didn't suffer from distractions from other passengers, even though we had a bunch of pre-teens fighting over their seats and practicing their cheer leading routines while their parents pretended not to know them.