writing under deadline: a question

[wellington1869]

I think its safe to say everyone today suffers ADD to some degree or another.  I'm finding this out for myself when I write under deadline (as I am right now ) Usually of course the terror of the deadline focuses my mind enough to pull me through. And occasionally the sheer joy of writing focuses my mind and pulls me through in other situations.

But I'm trying to be someone who doesnt rely on terror or pleasure so much to be a productive writer. I'd like to be more even-keeled.

What I'm discovering is that in order to do that I will need to be able to focus-on-demand.  Of course this is something that soft lazy americans just arent that used to doing, quite honestly (and I'm very much a soft lazy american, lol).

So for now I'm trying a few 'tricks' to help me focus on any task at hand, for 1 hour at a time. Whether thats language learning and practice, or straight writing, or whatever.  I bought one of these little very neat Polder timers (its useful in many ways, and inexpensive. And 160 positive reviews at amazon speaks for itself). I use it to time 1-hour bursts of focused writing. Then take a 15 minute break to stretch, maybe a snack or some situps, and then repeat that (I'd like to do an honest days work each day, whcih for me means 8 hours of being productive at my desk each day).

The timer-trick sort of works (at least until I tire of it, I guess). What tricks do you guys use to focus your mind when your mind is distracted and you need to get real work done?

[xsphat]

Try it without the timer. I say to myself "I am going to put X amount of time into this project, then I will do something for pleasure." The pleasure things can be an episode of Mad Men, a movie, a book to read or whatever. This has been working for me lately (except when the kid or the wife are crying ...).

The reason for this is school. I would leave four hour projects go until I have 3.5 hours until class, which sucks.

[Chloe]

The silliest thing I tried and actually worked was to redirect certain websites to 127.0.0.1. In Windows speak, edit windows/system32/drivers/etc/hosts and add the line 127.0.0.1 geekhack.org.

This worked for me for sites I spent too much time on or felt were bad for me. I also blocked them in my router so it was more effort to visit.

Sometimes I think it is better to try to develop a "this has to be done" mindset, not fear or reward based but more simple acceptance of the circumstances.

[wellington1869]

not fear or reward based but more simple acceptance of the circumstances.

very zen of you

[lexicon]

I segregate my work from my leisure browsing by putting them in separate desktops/work spaces in Linux.  So in the work space I'll have just reference sources open in FF, with all the fun stuff in another browser in the other space.  Crude but effective, for me at least.  I also close my email program when I'm trying to work.

It also helps to have editors who yell at you if you're late.

[xsphat]

I used to use Spaces with 4 desktops on Mac, but now use only one. I like to be able to do research and have it right there, and sometimes I play a video while I work or listen to music (very rarely).

But iWork '09 is out and Pages is my new favorite word processor. It has full screen mode, which I use when writing fiction, and it works well with MS file types — about time. I'm running the trial now and at the end I'm gonna by it.

EDIT: Scratch that about Pages — it can't be set to work in MS file formats natively, and even docs which are already .doc file types have to be saved as a new document in .pages. This is a deal-breaker, so it's back to Word '08 for me.

[itlnstln]

All I can say is willpower.  When I have a ton of sh*t to do at work, I can go balls-out on work and play later.