Focus

Writer’s block – how I push the resistance

Deadlines, Energy, Fear, Focus, Human Brain

Yesterday I wrote about how I get the Writer’s block everyday and some of the tactics I use to trick my brain into supporting me to write my articles. As I have mentioned multiple times earlier, the brain tries to conserve energy because it assumes its main responsibility is to ensure survival and it feels more comfortable with the idea of having energy rather than spending it on writing a new blog post.

One more tactic that I have found useful to get my brain into supporting me in my writing is the use of time pressure or deadlines. Generally I write my blog towards the end of my working day. Which means that quite often I have pressure to go for dinner or there’s a favorite program that I need to watch.

When the brain realizes that there’s a deadline to be met, it generally gets into action. You would have noticed this in all walks of life. Till there’s no pressure of a deadline, any project, any activity will be nowhere near closure. Suddenly when the deadline is due, people will put everything aside and only focus on this one activity. The combined focus and action miraculously gets the “project” shipped / delivered in record time.

Similarly when I have a deadline , but I know that I have to write the blog as part of the commitment I have made to myself, suddenly things fall in place.

All the resistance that the brain showed earlier, falls by the wayside and it supports me in getting the blog written and “shipped” or published.

Truthfully I don’t know the science behind this, it’s just a tactic that I have found useful so I am sharing with you. In addition to writing a blog, I have used the same tactic to also improve to a certain extent on hitting my daily tasks. By giving my myself a deadline and putting an alarm for the deadline, I have realized that my brain wanders less. If there’s no deadline, it tends to get into day dreaming and ruminating over things which happened or got messed up.

I would even suggest you also try and let me know if you got any benefits. In addition let me also know if you know of other ways to ensure that our brain does not create resistance or fear when you have to do a new task.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Utilising thinking time – with structure

creativity, Flow, Focus, Habits, Human Brain, Thinking

In my posts earlier, I have shared with you some of the good tools I have found for focusing our time. I have especially liked the Dean Jackson video on Focus Finder. The methods he uses are simple yet profound. The key thing is that you have to ensure you are able to ensure you are able to pull out time for thinking activities.

Since we have so many things prompting us and drawing attention to them, getting dedicated thinking time is almost a rarity even for me. The challenge is that the brain has got so used to the idea of getting disturbed, that if you keep your phone away to concentrate on some activity, you actually feel guilty and end up seeing the phone just to ensure that you have not received an urgent call. The next off course is email. You dig into one and by the time you finish that there’s another one demanding your attention.

So inspite of so called success with some of the tools which have helped me, I have not yet been able to take maximum benefit out of the thinking process.

So I am working out to see how I can make thinking time a habit using the process suggested by B.J.Fogg in his book Tiny Habits. To make it useful I have also tried to incorporate a system of identifying the next problem to be solved in advance so that when I do get time to think, my brain is not going helper skelter, trying to figure out what needs to be done.

So yesterday when I tried solving one problem, I identified problems which are two layered below it. Meaning if don’t solve those problems, the problem I was trying to solve yesterday will not get solved. Therefore even though I did not solve the problem completely, the ideas that came to me during the thinking time, gave me some items to focus on to solve, before coming back to that problem.

Today since I did not have to think in terms of the problem to be solved, the moment I focused on the problem, my mind went into flow quickly before the door bell rang and disturbed me. But in that short time, with the problem to be solved, defined in advance, my brain was getting into action faster and came up with ideas much faster. If this can work, then I may not have the most elegant solutions immediately but would have started moving faster to solve challenges.

Please see if this works for you and let me know your views.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Thinking time- adding Beethoven, Mozzart & Jazz

Focus, Human Brain, Music, Thinking

This one will be a very short post.

I like to keep updating you on the successes I have with some activities which I have suggested to you earlier.

I have written multiple times on how if you can take out focused thinking time every day, you will be able to achieve much more in a day.

Last few days I have been using music from the various symphonies created by people like Beethoven, Mozzart. The symphonies they have created take your mind into a different zone for concentration and you are able to get into focus very fast. Assumption is you are sitting in a quiet room.

I have been a fan of Jazz since childhood. Especially the teams which play the trumpets, clarinets et al.

Since the Amazon Prime music has good selection of Jazz bands also, I tested them and I got the same benefits.

If getting focused thinking time is a challenge, I would suggest you try these music possibilities.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!