Last year I hit a new record. I wrote five full-length novels. Three of the five were YA (Young Adult) books which are slightly shorter in length (and require less research) than my adult historicals. However, five is quite the accomplishment for me considering my busy schedule with five children and homeschooling.
I’m often asked, “How do you do it?”
I never have a perfect answer. Mostly because there are numerous factors that come into play. First and foremost is the fact that I’ve been writing almost every single day for the past ten years. My writing muscles are very strong. There’s NO way I could have run a writing marathon early in my career. I had to work my way up to where I’m at.
Second, I’m an extremely self-disciplined person. Before I start a first draft of a new book, I map out how many words I need to write every week in order to complete the book by my self-imposed deadline. Once I figure that out, I stick to my word count goals and rarely let myself get off track.
Third, I carve writing time into my day. I intentionally block it in (sometimes in longer chunks, sometimes shorter, but always something). Then when I sit down to write, I don’t get distracted with the internet. In fact, I do my writing on a small laptop that has a terrible internet connection which deters me from “browsing for just a few minutes” (which almost always turns out to be much longer!).
Finally, one of the biggest factors in helping me focus is that I have an arm’s length relationship with social media. Of course, social media is an important part of every author’s toolkit in promoting books and relating to readers. However, it has the potential to suck a person in.
I recently read an article by Alon Schwartz the CEO of unGlue: “How to Stop Facebook From Hijacking Your Attention.” In the article Schwartz quotes the founder of Facebook who admits that his social media company was built on one goal: “How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?”
Schwartz goes on to talk about how Facebook and other tech companies want to get their consumers addicted, but now Facebook is beginning to acknowledge how harmful social media can be to a person’s mental health.
The article gives 8 tips for preventing Facebook (and other social media) from taking up too much time. The tips are practical—like “Remove Facebook and Instagram apps from your phone” and “Stop taking your phone to the restroom” (which made me chuckle). Read the rest of the tips HERE.
All of us can benefit from taking a look at whether we’ve allowed social media to hijack our attention.
But for writers and other creatives looking for ways to boost productivity, cutting back on social media is ESSENTIAL. When we cut out the social media noise, we free our brains to focus, to finally take us deeper into a quiet creative place so that we can lose ourselves in our imagination.
As we visit that happy creative place consistently and for longer periods, we pave a smooth pathway there, so that eventually we’re able to push aside roadblocks and return to our imagination-world with greater ease.
Whatever our situation, whether we’re readers or writers, we all can benefit from taking a look at what kind of grip social media has on us.
Has facebook (or other social media) hijacked your attention? What tips do YOU have for keeping social media from becoming an addiction?
Jody Hedlund
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Early on in the Facebook craze I saw the distraction it could bring into my busy life. My children insisted that I have a page, set it up for me, and diligently tried to teach me how it use it. The page sat dormant for a year or so. Finally I found the way to delete it…by myself!!! As with anything, social media can become a self centered all consuming habit. I had much rather spend the time I am carving out of my busy day reading a good book.
Thanks for the tips Jody, especially about social media. I set up a Facebook page a few years back, but didn’t do anything with it until this past year. It is wonderful for connecting with family who live far away and with whom I seldom get a chance to speak, and I can keep up with friends whom I rarely see. BUT it has wasted SO MUCH of my TIME over the past months that I have become frustrated. So, I just now deleted it from my phone.
I have often wondered how you are able to do so much. Thank you for sharing.
I retired from teaching in 2014. I would never have considered engaging in social media while I was teaching. I finally gave in that August and had my nephew help me set up a Facebook page so I could participate in a month long group read of a new release by one of my favorite authors. I very seldom post and usually only login if I get a notification. It has been very obvious to me how addictive FB can become. I resent getting messages from FB telling me they have found events in my area. I’m smart enough to know about events I want to attend. I also resent getting ‘encouragements’ to share a memory. These are only two examples of the many ways FB tries to control and monopolize people’s lives and time. It is scary. I do not have twitter or in stag ram accounts. I do enjoy Goodreads and blogs that interest me, like this one.
The other sad thing about social media is how early it is gaining control of our youth. I taught 5th grade and was shocked to find out how many of my students had FB accounts. When I mentioned it to our computer specialist, knowing these were underage accounts, I found out she was actually helping them under the guise of, “They already have accounts, and I need to teach them how to be safe.”
You are absolutely right about self-discipline being so important, in this matter and other aspects of life. I am truly amazed that you have written five books in one year. More power to you and blessings in whatever you do.
Great post!
Emails and Facebook do have the potential to suck up the whole day. I find that I spend less time doing creative things eg. knit, sew and scrap. I keep time scheduled for reading.😀
One small saving grace is that my husband and I keep basic flip phones and our other media is on our tablet and laptop. We only access these at home. Sadly we still spend more time then we should on the internet.
I enjoyed your post above. I think the first step to prevent social media from taking over is for folks to become aware of what it is doing. Most people seem to either be unaware of the impact it has on their lives or simply don’t care. Bury yourself in social media so you don’t have to deal with real life. It’s much like everything else in life – we need to learn moderation. The article by Alon Schwartz was interesting but I have to disagree with #5. He must be living in a different world. He says: “It seems there are no unhappy people on social media.” I don’t see if every day but I have seen FB posts on many occasions by some very miserable people. I’m not sure how he has missed that type of junk. I’m right with him on #1. I’m not on Instagram and I do not have the FB app on my phone. If I had the eyesight of a 20-year-old, I might have a different perspective on that but I like to use FB on a device with a MUCH larger screen. I understand the thing about taking the cell phone to the bathroom. For many years, I kept magazines in the bathroom and often took a book with me. I often referred to the bathroom as my reading room. LOL! Thanks for sharing this today.
I take breaks from social media for months at a time. I try to not be on Facebook as much as I used to because it is very addictive.
Hi Everyone! I’ve SO enjoyed reading your thoughts about Facebook and social media! I appreciate the insights so many of you have shared! It IS rather scary to think about how Facebook keeps sucking us in–not just with sharing memories and the “going to events” features (as Betty mentioned above), but also now they’ve introduced a weather function and other features I probably don’t even know about! 🙂 It seems they intend to have their fingers in every aspect of our lives (if we let them!).