I’ve often wondered why it’s taking me so long to get back to writing for myself. It used to be my comfort zone. Like always, I have multiple conversations running through my head. But never the kind of difficulty putting it down like I am having now. Should I blame the distractions that are constantly flashing around waiting to be consumed and forgotten? A string of tweets, timelines, emails, youtube videos, random facebook photographs and some worldly and not so worldly articles that eat up way more than your idle hours – I know it’s not at all worth it. But how do you pick what’s worth it and what’s not? The digital globe is going nuts trying to solve this, I guess.
Another odd but worrying habit that I am starting to develop is searching / googling around for the smallest of queries that pop into my mind. Hair fall problems, good food in my neighbourhood, the husband’s odd honey induced stomach ache, multiple flight search combinations for holidays that are currently castles in the air, app searches for tasks I won’t even remember to use the app for…and so on.
Some of these searches do give me a sense of achievement at times. Like solving home improvement issues (got rid of smells from tupperware! Yay!) or managing to cook a tasty meal out of a recipe we found online..or cleaning up digital waste. But then, the amount of time wasted definitely outweighs the productive searches. Though, how do you decide what’s productive and what’s not? Maybe something somewhere down the line will be useful, yeah? Or so we think.
Moving on. In this phase of my life, I’m trying to focus on non-digital aspects apart from the usual work and home grind. Catching up with reading, hitting the gym, going for walks… It’ll be a month soon and I shall definitely take stock of the progress. 2 half finished books done and a 3rd one begun. Not bad eh?
Why does then digital focus take so much effort? While writing this post, I’ve resisted the urge to:
- open a new tab
- check whatsapp
- check my emails
- start work related writing
- go back to a previous unfinished post
- think how many people I will share this post with and where I’d share it
And some more…I also spent some seconds wondering if there’s an app for digital concentration. Not just those productivity to-do list, reminder service apps. Maybe it’s about setting goals – as simple as taking a notepad and writing your tasks down (believe me I do that literally everyday) – still hasn’t helped me cut out the noise. Who knows, the future is possibly about taskphones and productivity computers..those that will cut out all social elements.
Maybe that’s just what I need.
If you can make social so much fun, maybe you can make non-social fun too, yeah, Apple? Are you listening?
Making Mayhem 