How to Stay Focused on Writing (Even if You’re Easily Distracted)

It happens to us all.

You sit to write, and distractions flood you:

Someone asks you to run an errand, “…since you’re not really working.”
An email demands immediate response.
That person you’ve been trying to reach finally calls.
Facebook hooks you with an irresistible headline (“What she did next will leave you speechless!”)

You had finally gotten yourself before the keyboard, and now your day has been washed out.

What are you to do—how are you to keep writing?

Keep your big kid pants on. Successful writers find a way.

Only you can take control of your limited time.

Sure, you’ve got other important things going on—your job, relationships, and myriad miscellaneous commitments.

We all have 168 hours in a week. So what are you to do?

Through the years, I’ve had to develop a system to keep me focused, even though my schedule is as packed as yours:

How to Reduce Distraction and Stay Focused on Writing
1. Listen to counsel

My wife understands my time and energy capacity better than I do. I bounce opportunities off her, and where I might see an opening on the calendar and say, “Why not?” she will say, “You might want to keep that open for downtime. Your plate’s too full.”

Her counsel is invaluable because she’s almost always right—and she always has my best interest in mind. Knowing I have her built-in gauge on my schedule allows me to focus on writing.

2. Form a personal accountability board

Mine consists of a pastor friend, a personal friend, and my eldest son. We each live in a different time zone and represent a different stage of life (one of us is in his 40s, another his 50s, another his 60s, and the other his 70s). We have a monthly conference call, during which they ask probing questions, challenge me, and make me justify my life decisions.

Imagine the sense of peace that gives me, knowing that three people who care about me have my back. That makes me want to redeem every minute before the computer screen.

Think of who might be best at keeping you accountable and see if they’ll play that role. You might be surprised to find they’d be honored. If nothing else, perhaps they’ll do what my guys do and keep you grounded. It’s hard to get too full of yourself when your friends feel free to question your motives.

I tell my board of my deadlines, and they’re not afraid to monitor my progress. That’s quite a motivator to keep focused. You might start with one friend and make yourselves mutually accountable.

3. Become a compartmentalizer

I schedule blocks of time each day for entirely separate tasks. When it’s time to devote yourself to someone for the sake of the relationship—whether your spouse or child or friend—do only that. No cell phone. No jotting yourself a reminder about your book. Compartmentalize.

If you’re writing from 8 to 10 in the morning and then from 10 to 11 plan to prepare for the meeting of a committee you’re on, keep those separate. When you’re writing, use an app like Freedom, turn off your social media and email, resolve not to answer the phone, and give yourself to your work.

Then treat your committee meeting preparation the same way. Give it your full attention, no daydreaming about your plot or taking “just a second” to check email. Social media and surfing the net should be relegated to their own block of time. Work before you play, and you can play without guilt.

List the things you must accomplish each day, and move from the most difficult to the easiest. Allot each the compartment of time it deserves, and you’ll find yourself focused and productive.

4. Guard your writing time

I don’t know about you, but writing remains the most difficult thing I’ll do all day. So it comes first on my list of priorities. Finish what you intend to do at the keyboard each day and you’ll be motivated to tick off everything else on your list too.

How do you respectfully keep others from violating your writing time?

Be sure your family, and anyone else who lives with you, knows your writing schedule and that you are unavailable during that time. I have a friend who tells people, “I don’t want to be interrupted except for news of someone’s death, and it had better be yours.”

And my wife hung this sign over my writing cave door:

If your social media and phone are off during writing time, that takes care of those intrusions. If you hate to appear unresponsive, consider an automated reply that tells anyone emailing you that you answer messages at a certain time each day, and thank them for their patience and understanding.

In a corporate setting, your superiors help set such boundaries. In your freelance writing career no one will protect your borders but you. When you take them seriously, others will too.

Get Focused and Finish Your Book

Follow these steps and you will multiply your chances of finally finishing that book.

Whatever your message, if you didn’t think the world needed to hear it, you wouldn’t be writing. But in this busiest age in history, you know how easily it could get away from you and never get finished. Unless you learn to focus.

What do you do to stay focused—any strategies different from mine? Let me know in the comments below.

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