How To Create When You're Completely Distracted
(This is about life, and your phone, and about life)
Hello to all the new readers out there 👋
I’m Josh Spilker and this is a newsletter for online writing, creativity, and culture, and I’m done with sparklers for at least another 6 months…
I’ve been at my parents’ house in Louisiana with my two daughters. It’s been fun to be with family over the 4th of July holiday, and it’s been hot.
My parents live on an acre, my grandmother lives on 10 acres, one uncle lives on a lake and other aunts and uncles and cousins scattered around.
It sounds (potentially) idyllic, but because of the property sizes, there’s always some type of “project” going on, so when I visit, I throw in my work shoes.
You never know, but I always know there will be something.
And this time didn’t disappoint:
There was a big derecho storm two weeks ago. Many fences were down, including my dad’s. We’ve spent a few evenings pulling limbs & branches out for an hour or so to make progress on clearing space for another fence
Because of the derecho, a cable truck came out to restring a cable behind the house where there was storm damage. The truck with one of those big cherry-picker cabs on top, became stuck in the mud, turning a 3-hour job into a 10-hour one. They couldn’t get it out that night, even after my dad and uncle tried to lift the wheel well out of the mud with their own large tractor. Then we went back a few hours later to try and jack up the truck. Nothing worked. They left the truck overnight and returned with a winch and two large trucks to pull it out finally.
Then at my (other) uncle’s house, a small storm snapped a huge tree in his yard, covering his driveway. My dad and I cut at that tree for an hour or so to clear space.
Oh, it’s 95 degrees and humid. It’s not the heat or the humidity that are bad; it’s both.
And yes, I did work my day job during all this, pecking away at the computer.
I’m thankful for the flexibility, but it’s also been very distracting
How do you create when you’re distracted?
How can you write or do something, anything creative when life is going crazy at you? When trees are falling down, or families falling apart, or the children need something, or you are packing things and moving?
I’m (still) in the middle of Stolen Focus by Johann Hari, and this is very question he’s trying to understand.
There’s no doubt that the phone is a bright box of disco flashing firecrackers in front of our face; it’s hard to look away until we realize it’s too bright, and then we can never see again.
The easy answer for this is to *focus* but the harder lesson is this:
1. Work on something you like enough to not do something else.
I almost said pUrSuE YR pAssIoN but we know that’s not enough. It’s false.
Instead, you have to love something enough to put other stuff aside. To not watch Netflix, to not watch the game, to not pursue another worthwhile hobby.
Obviously this isn’t feasible all the time, and people get trapped right? They pursue the thing they love more than their spouse, more than their family, and then have money but no one likes them. There’s a balance.
But sometimes it does mean not doing something else you like because you like something else more.
2. Put in the time even when you don’t want to
These tweets from Kevin Maloney made a splash in the indie lit sphere a few weeks ago. Kevin is a funny writer, not big-time famous, but is a smart and creative guy. He got a lot of grief for these (the formatting is creative), but his main point is still solid.
This isn’t a call to always get up at 4:30 AM or to never go to parties. But if you’re never putting in early or late work, or trying to find more bars to go to instead of creating or writing, then you have to start thinking about what you actually want to do.
I’d say the past three years have been hard for me on this front. I don’t think I liked writing enough to go the extra mile, much less a few yards, and the output shows.
I put out 2 books, built a nice little thing on Medium, and worked a day job. In that time, I made some side money off an SEO course, but did I put in the work in other places? No.
I go through seasons with being more productive and less productive; I just can’t expect the output to be the same when the inputs weren’t the same.
3. Create even though the routine changes
I had to help my family, which meant fewer books and movies this week.
I had to adjust. Re-arrange. I’m writing this the night before it goes out, which is not something I typically liked to do. I didn’t skip any hometown parties, but I also didn’t look for them either. I’m not hanging out at the bar. I’m writing when I’d prefer not to.
Schedule changes are some of the roughest, because the routine keeps us sane. I still work “normal” hours because the world functions in much of that same way, I’ve developed a routine and it helps me accomplish things.
But if creating or writing is that important, you will blast your way to creating, even if the routine is different.
Small announcement: Try the Create Make Write Notion Starter Pack to help you with your blog posts and idea creation.
More Things:
It’s Foolish To Start From Scratch. Here’s What to Use Instead. At Medium.
How To Create a Writing Habit From Nothing. At Medium.
Last Week:
Last Things
“A viable neighborhood is a community: and a viable community is made up of neighbors who cherish and protect what they have in common.” — Wendell Berry
Keep going,
-Josh Spilker