Distractions & Difficulties

One would think that, having chosen a course of action, having then researched, planned, and committed to particular execution steps, that now would be the easy part. Execute, execute, execute. I am very good at executing at work. Or I was in the past. I may be overestimating my current skill level.

Regardless, the issues I’m facing now, the troubles that I need to overcome, are a combination of distraction and needing to form new habits.

Starting with distraction: It is much harder to focus on history books than romance novels, harder to commit to reading a description of 9/11 than a NYT article on habits. I find myself picking up my phone ‘just to check’ something a million times, needing tea, or a bathroom break, or to add or remove a blanket.

Yesterday, I tried using the QualityTime app on my phone, but got freaked out when I couldn’t find any emergency settings to stop a phone break if I genuinely needed to use the phone. So that’s uninstalled. I just signed up for a month’s free trial of Sam Harris’s Waking Up app. I’ve meditated in the past, and used the free Insight Timer app, so I’m not sure if I’ll want a subscription when the trial period ends. But, either way, returning to a meditation practice might help with my current inability to focus.

Sort of relatedly, forming habits that will enable focus and completion of the work I need to do is a challenge! When I’ve been accustomed to letting my attention be driven by my devices and whatever is going on in the world, consciously choosing to do particular activities at particular times is difficult. I sit here and don’t know if right now I should focus on doing my reading and critiquing for my writing group on Thursday, or my reading for the Mikhail Bulgakov class, or my reading for the American Detox reading group. I guess this is where time block planning comes in. I need to figure out how much I can read in a particular amount of time, probably specified by subject/topic, and then allocate accordingly. As it is, I have no idea how long any of this will take, so I’m flying completely blind. Last weekend, my reading for the first American Detox session took most of Saturday, and the reading was not that long. But it was hard to read, from an emotional standpoint, and so I let my mind wander repeatedly.

At least for this evening, I’m not going to plan things out too much. I’m going to work on some focused rituals — tea, candles, a comfortable seat with lots of pillows and a heated blanket— and see if that helps to stay present with the MB reading. Maybe I’ll at least time myself to see how much progress I make on pages too.