A couple months ago a friend came through town because his band was playing a show at the Crystal Ballroom. We got breakfast at his favorite spot in Portland (Mother’s Bistro) and then wandered around downtown where we ended up in a guitar shop. The guys in the band started going through pedals and amps, talking it up with the gearheads in the shop, when my friend turned to me and said “you don’t have anything like this, as a writer, do you?” What he meant was, there aren’t shops where writers go to geek out over equipment. The Mac shop at the mall doesn’t count, really. And neither does Best Buy. And I’ve never wandered into an Office Depot with my writer friends to look through old, used boxes of pen and paper. My friend was right. Well, sort of.
I actually do use one piece of cool equipment when I write. I don’t use it all the time, but I use it lots. It’s a kitchen timer. And I thought maybe passing along my use of it as a writing tip might be appreciated.
What do I use my kitchen timer for, other than for ready-bake cookies? I use it to focus. And maybe you can use it to focus, too.
When I have two or three writing assignments (as I do today) I just make a list, then pick one, then set my little timer for an hour or twenty minutes or whatever amount of time that specific assignment will cost me. And then, while the timer is ticking away on my desk, I don’t let myself do anything else. I don’t answer the phone, I don’t work on other projects, I don’t bake cookies, I just focus on that specific writing assignment. When the timer goes off, I decide whether I want to keep working on it, or move on. Most of the time, the assignment is done before the timer goes off (without the timer, I’d have gotten distracted and it wouldn’t have been completed). It’s a simple tool, but it works.
Without my timer, I get distracted, and it’s hard for me to prioritize my time. My mind works more like a junk drawer than a to-do list. But with the timer, I give myself permission to let other things slide, at least until that bell rings. I give myself permission to focus on one thing for a limited amount of time, and knock it out.
Rock Stars can talk about amps and pick-ups all they want, but show me a rock star with a sick kitchen timer like mine and maybe I will be impressed.
Tags: A couple months ago
I did a similar thing when struggling with my major assignment on the crusades (such an easy topic!).
Turned off all communication with the outside world and went for it.
The only downfall is that I missed the email letting me know that due to a blackout that shut down our college website (and therefore our portal for submitting our assignments), we had a further 48 hours to finish the assignment.
I’ll definitely be using the timer this semester though!
One of the things I find difficult about writing consistently, is that I can only come up with things to write about when I’m in a good mood. I find it difficult to write when I’m grumpy or tired. Am I alone with this struggle? Anybody have a “kitchen timer solution” to grumpiness or fatigue?
[...] 1. For stuff I write in the morning. These are my journal posts. They tend to ramble more. These are also posts that I mostly write because I have to or the thought will take over my day. It’s hard to explain that, but I think I’ve disciplined myself to wake up thinking about something. There’s definitely a spiritual discipline side to it as well. I’m going on 6 years of daily public blogging… so it’s probably as much a habit as a discipline. But I really dig getting up early to write. And the pressure of having to finish by a certain time helps. (Donald Miller has a great post about using a timer to blog) [...]
What a good attitude I hope you do well.
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[...] do that, I’ll be using a method taken from one of my favourite writers. Using a stopwatch instead (I actually bought a kitchen timer but failed to foresee the possibility [...]