Top Ten Ways I Distracted Myself From Writing In 2016
by Lisa Mecham
I’m a big fan of procrastination. Would never get any writing done without pushing myself to the brink of utter anxiety and desperation over a deadline. Here are ten ways I kept myself from working this year.
1. Momentum
Added this handy-dandy dashboard to my Chrome browser. It’s supposed to eliminate distraction but I use it to get lost in gorgeous photo backgrounds, quotes and to-do lists. You know you’re a master procrastinator when you’re able to turn a productivity tool into a time waster.
2. Twitter
My only social media vice. Here are some folks who’ve made me think/laugh/feel this year:
3. Howard Stern Show
Been a listener for over twenty years. I contain multitudes. Hit ’Em With The Hein.
4. Swissmiss Blog
Tina Roth Eisenberg is a Swiss designer based in Brooklyn. She started swissmiss in 2005 as a “personal visual archive” and it’s one of my favorite blogs. I read it everyday but especially look forward to her Friday Link Packs.
5. Wishing I could commit to something on a daily basis
I saw one of Craig Stephens’ paintings of a Hostess Ho Ho hanging at a friend’s house and loved it. I tracked him down and fell head over heels for his aesthetic (the everyday rendered gorgeously in still life) and his artistic discipline (since 2014, he decided to paint one small painting every day).
6. Meditation
Am I really one of those people? Shit, I am. This may be the only healthy vice I’ve got. Highly recommend:
7. Wondering about what’s out there
Used this applet to deliver an incredible Astronomy Picture of the Day into my inbox every day. It’s a nice reminder of what’s happening beyond Planet Earth. As Albert Einstein supposedly said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity.”
8. Searching for music to write to
I waste a lot of time tracking down soundtracks that help me write. Oh, the irony. Here are a few I came to love this year:
Black Mirror, “Nosedive” Episode by Max Richter
Stranger Things by Kyle Dixon and Michael Stein
9. Listening to podcasts
Best way to not write and yet still feel like I’ve accomplished something. Some of my favorites:
Commonplace: Conversations with Poets (and Other People)
10. Visual Distractions
Art, architecture, weather maps, miscellany… I have a wandering eye that feeds my curious brain. I often fall down the rabbit hole of these sites.
New York Public Library — Public Domain Collections
Rabih Alameddine’s Twitter feed
May you live long and procrastinate!
About the author
If we were making our own list of our favorite people on Twitter, Lisa would definitely be at the top. And if were making another list about the best ways to procrastinate, reading her work (which you can do in Amazon’s Day One, Mid-American Review, and BOAAT, among other publications) would also be at the top there, too.
Originally published at littlefiction.com.
