Posts tagged: distraction free writing

Apparently, Finishing Things a New Online "Trend" (or, Singletasking??)

June 30, 2009, by 7 comments

Amusingly, it’s now apparently OK to turn off the swirling tornado of notifications, alerts, bings and (bleeping) beeps that seem to define the working day for so many of us.

We can now move on to actually doing things until complete – one thing at a time – clear in the knowledge that its OK because it’s a trend:

via Singletasking: The Next Trend in Web Working?.

We freelance web workers multitask like it was going out of style. Question is, is it actually going out of style? Some people think so, and they look to singletasking as the next trend in how we work.

Singletasking is just what it sounds like: approaching and tackling one task at a time, sequentially, instead of trying to do a whole bunch of things at once, as has become de rigeur in our modern multitasking age. If you’re like me, the thought is probably at least a little refreshing, and maybe more than a little appealing right off the bat.

The principle is sound. Take on one task at a time, and don’t begin another until the one you’ve already started is complete. It sounds simple, but you know as well as I do that actually implementing that kind of thing in real life will take a lot more effort than you might first think. For one, it means ignoring any urge to procrastinate, and making sure that you prioritize very carefully in advance, lest you realize too late that what you thought was most urgent actually could’ve taken a back seat to something else.

I’ve got nothing against multitasking, except, of course, that it tends to get in the way of doing good work.

That’s why I tend to post here in spurts (when I’m busy, I’m busy), and why I find myself writing more and more using “clean screen” writing tools.

It’s also why the racy new notification system in Unbuntu Linux is mostly turned off.

I’ve got words to write and thinking to do, and if it’s one thing I’ve learned about twitter, Facebook, chat and email, it’s that the person on the other end isn’t doing to do that thinking for me.

Keep writing (with as few distractions as possible), Tom Chandler.

Distraction-Free Writing (or, How Even Old Writing Dogs Can Learn New Tricks)

May 18, 2009, by 18 comments

My working day hasn’t grown less complicated over the decades. I used to openly mock techniques invoked in the service of productivity, but because of the temptations and interruptions of our connected lives, I now embrace them.

That includes my writing tools – a subject that remains at the core of writer geekhood.

One of the losses I experienced in my switch from Windows to Linux was the Q10 “clean screen” text editor (Windows only). It offered not only the dark, “no distractions” screen, but also a target word count and yes, a typewriter noise on every key click.

After testing the Linux-ready jdarkroom editor (which I didn’t like), I found Pyroom, which lacks the panache of Q10, but not its basic usability.

The Clean Screen editor: Not many choices, but zero distractions.

The Pyroom Clean Screen editor: Not many choices, but zero distractions.

Once I customized the colors to reflect an orange-on-black “Halloween” color palette that I found very easy on my eyes, I was off and running.

Even Old Writers Can Learn New Tricks

In my less tolerant moments, I’d tell you real writers don’t need gimmicks to put words on paper.

Today – in my more realistic moments – you’ll find me writing with distraction-free writing tools. (Hypocrisy, it seems, isn’t wholly the province of politicians and Wall Street.)

It wasn’t that many years ago that I wrote everything in MS Word, switching to OpenOffice after yet another expensive MS Office upgrade disappointed.

Today, 80% of my copy is written in a programmer’s editor or something equally simple (like Pyroom, which sadly lacks a spell checker).

I could go on and on about the reasons for using distraction-free writing tools, but the best is the simplest; I get more words written in Pyroom than in a word processor.

Words are the writer’s equivalent of a home builder’s pine two-by-four, and the more you get nailed together in worthwhile fashion, the happier you’ll be.

Those who haven’t headed off into the unknown with Linux benefit from a lot of choices surrounding distraction-free editors, some of which you’ll find profiled at the Bad Language blog, here at the Linux & Friends blog, or this at the Loose Wires blog.

Keep writing (any way you can), Tom Chandler.

UPDATE: For the hardcore among my readers, there now exists a computerized typewriter analog – with no ability to backspace or edit what  you’ve written. Thanks, but no thanks.