Finding focus: what works for me
Except right now. How many more years until Election Day?
Last week I had the fun of sharing this delicious Kim Stafford essay with my teens and Scott: Writing as Ritual. Kim, a former Oregon poet laureate, is the son of William Stafford, also a former Oregon poet laureate.
Kim writes:
For my part, I had been writing for years, by fits and starts, when my father’s death opened a new path for my life as a writer, and as a human being, as a seeker. To that point, writing for me was most often an occasional project—when I “got inspired”—to express my inner feelings or tell my experience in the world. But then by my father’s last will and testament, I inherited the care of his twenty thousand hand-written pages of daily writing from the 1950s through the day of his death in 1993. And as I handled his pages, I had a chance to survey the whole life of a supremely active writer. What I found was a readiness to range far and wide on the hospitable page in ways I will explore in the chapters to follow. In the end, it seems to me, a buoyant writing practice is a place where the two realms join as one: internal personal response meets external experiences, discoveries, and events in the wide world.
I loved reading about how a deeper understanding of his father’s writing practice altered Kim’s own practice, leading to years and years of fruitful work.
Further in the essay, he outlines the four components he noticed time and again in his father’s daily notes. They are best read in the context of the full essay, so I’ll let you click over and enjoy the real deal. But I thought this first point was especially worth calling out:
“Each page begins with the date. Is that even worth mentioning? Well, it turns out to be strangely helpful — in the act of writing, and of course for keeping track of the writings. “Once I write the date on a piece of paper,” he said once, “I know I'm okay. I have made it to my writing.”
I’m always intrigued by the ways other artists and writers have developed their own version of “tiny habits.” Maintaining a steady creative practice of any kind—especially in this age of endless feeds and unrelenting distractions—is easiest when you have some kind of consistent first step to get you through the door.
Scott tells a story of a comic-book-writer friend whose daily habit was to sit down at his computer—a deliberately older model that had no internet connection—and play exactly three games of Solitaire. No more, no fewer. When the third game was over, he opened his Word doc and got to work. The Solitaire habit was his entry point, a treat that primed his brain to shift to work mode.
Back when my children were little and I had a series of tight book deadlines, what worked best for me was to write a short blog post about what the kids and I had done together that day, and then to turn to the novel in progress. Writing about my children helped me make the shift from mom mode to writer mode.
For some people, it’s lighting a candle. This works wonderfully for kids, too, by the way, as my pal Julie Bogart often shares. The pleasant ritual of lighting the candle to signal the beginning of some focused work, and blowing it out to finish the work session with a very visible and physical action, can create a container for the work. It’s another way of priming your brain to shift into focus mode.
“…several years ago, I made a vow to perform this four-part practice every day, and now it’s been six years without a break. What works for me is to write first thing, before daylight. I’ve decided as the control group of one for this experience to enlist all four elements each day—the date, of course. And then there is always something to scribble about from the day before—the boring prose. And then—what now seems an essential element in the process—the aphorism. To wait for a thought, which always appears, given time and welcome, is the prelude to true practice for me. The aphorism is the hinge that begins to turn memory to thought, event to idea, scribbling to design. Then a poem, something like a poem, notes for a poem.”
—Kim Stafford
What’s working for me
What I like to do these days is open Llama Life, my favorite pomodoro-style timer, and load a custom workflow I created for focused writing blocks.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Pomodoro method, it’s a rhythm for work in which you alternate chunks of focused work with short breaks. Typically, the pattern is: 25 minutes of work followed by a five-minute break. After the fourth work block, the break is 20 minutes.
My own rhythm is different depending on the project. For novel-writing, I like to work longer (more like 45 minutes), with slightly longer breaks. If I’m really in flow, I need the timer to nudge me to stand up and stretch my legs.
For writing Brave Writer literature guides, I use a different rhythm: 20 minutes of work alternating with ten-minute breaks. The fourth work block is 30 minutes, and then I get a longer break. That creates a nice two-hour focus session, which is a good amount of time for that very challenging work.
I label my breaks “play” because that feels extra appealing. Even if I’m just standing up and walking downstairs to get a drink, billing it as playful instead of taking a break (which can feel more like a duty) kind of tricks my brain into thinking I’m getting a treat.
Pomodoro workflows didn’t always work for me. Or rather, they always worked once I got started with the rhythm, but I used to find myself procrastinating about clicking start on the first work session. Then I made an important tweak. Honestly, kind of a life-changing tweak!
I added a ten-minute “play” block at the top of my pomodoro stack. Basically, this means I have ten minutes to goof off in any way I please before I get down to business. Instant difference. Instead of feeling like now I have to put my nose to the grindstone, mutter mutter, I always feel a little thrill of playing hooky. I get to enter the work session feeling playful about it.
When the Llama Life timer chimes, I click out of the goofing-off tab and turn my attention to writing.
There are lots of pomodoro apps, or you can use a kitchen timer or a set of alarms on your phone. But I have to say I like Llama Life specifically—better than any other app I’ve used for this purpose. The whole thing is infused with a spirit of playfulness. I like that I can choose colors and icons for my blocks. I love that it showers me with confetti when I click Complete on a block.
Okay, I didn’t know when I started this post that it was going to turn into a whole cheerleading session on Llama Life. But I do have an affiliate code that gives a discount on a subscription if it sounds appealing to you. Use this link and enter MELLLAMA25 at checkout.
What I’ve described above applies to my work-work: books, Brave Writer, other gigs, family admin chores. I have a whole nother vibe for my early-morning creative practice sessions. I make a cup of extra-caffeinated hot cocoa (my beloved Cogo is no longer available, so I switched to Cocogize—like Cogo, another of Scott’s brilliant discoveries, since I dislike coffee and am, uh, lukewarm about tea) and curl up under a blanket with my favorite notebook1 on my lap. It’s noodling-around time, and it goes like this:
Wordle and Connections. This wakes up my brain & gets me in word mode.
Duolingo. Gotta keep up that streak! Also: language. Vroom.
Read a little, write a little, stare out the window a little. Or pick up an embroidery hoop and stitch in the quiet, while the long, low train whistle calls from beyond the rooves.
The only real rule is: I must not, under any circumstances, look at my to-do list—or the news.
(Nine days before a future-shaping election, that is a very very very hard rule to keep.)
(As in, I’m not keeping it AT ALL. Twitter at dawn. So dumb. So dumb!!)
Do you have any favorite practices for kicking off a work session (no matter what kind of work you do)? I’d love to hear what works for you!
Related:
Leuchtturm 1917 hardbound, A5 dot grid. Just the right amount of skritch.
This reminds me of Phil in "Anne of the Island," when Aunt Jamesina told her to work first then play and Phil said that these days we play our play then dig in. It resonated me with me the moment I read it and still does. The way you've found to incorporate it is ingenious. :)
Love this!