Focus a distracted mind

Our busy lives leave us time-poor. In between work, school activities, housework and being the perfect mindful parent, we need to make the most of any time we do have. It is essential to focus a distracted mind in order to be productive.

When I started writing three years ago, I would search for the perfect Provencal character name for an hour. I could not write fifty words in a sitting. Imagine my horror, when I found out a novel in my genre would normally be 80-100k words. It seemed like an impossible task. And yet, I had all these ideas screaming loud in my mind, keeping me awake, shadowing my steps.

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week, so they say. Once the kids were dropped off and the computer was humming and staring at me mournfully, I would dust those shelves and re-organise those drawers that hadn’t been touched in weeks. It was not really helpful, although hygienic and sparkly. I needed to find out how to stop procrastinating and keep my mind on the task.

• Make it fun

Find your flow, get motivated. Writing has become my flow. Six hours can seem like one and suddenly it is time to pick up the children. If inspiration strikes at 11:30pm when you are drifting through the fug of dreams, get up and get it down somewhere. If blogging bores you but your secret passion is Game of Thrones, find a way to combine the two.

• Find your people

“Life is hard. Find some really good people to walk through it with.” This quote from Andrena Sawyer resonates with me. Surround yourself with positive, like-minded people. Working from home can be isolating, so finding a group (either online or not) of people doing the same as you do, is important.

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This post was originally written as a guest post for the beautiful site Liked by Becky. See the rest of the post here.