On Filtering Out the Noise
It's All Noise
Hi friends,
I’m writing this on Tuesday afternoon about ohhhhhhhhhhh 36 hours after I intended to start writing this. I have a lot on my plate. Several manuscripts I’m reading and formulating notes on. Tons of family stuff which is fun but also takes physical time in my days. Tons of email and queries, as always. Contracts. And editing my own book, which is….going! Somewhere! Along! Slowly!
I have had a lot of trouble sitting down and just doing shit lately. Like a single task. A single email. Folding the laundry. This newsletter. There is a lot of noise in my head, mainly all the tasks I am not doing, buzzing around my ears and distracting me. I’ll sit down to read something and then have a good idea for the newsletter. I’ll start to write an edit letter and remember that email I was supposed to send to a client. I’ll open a contract and remember the childcare I have to set up for some random day off from school soon. This is normal. This is life. I don’t have any particular executive functioning challenges that make this extra hard for me. It’s just regular hard.
What makes it worse, of course, if the volume of things. More manuscripts to read and queries to answer. More contracts to vet. (Yay! This is the best problem to have because it means more deals have been done.) More random home chores. I don’t have to go on. You get the point.
I was talking to my therapist about this very problem recently. She suggested a reward system—a treat I can give myself for accomplishing X number of tasks. It’s real low hanging fruit as far as suggestions go, but it is a good place to start. But the problem is, I don’t deny myself treats. If I want an iced coffee and a cookie, I’m just going to go buy myself an iced coffee and an cookie, to-do list be damned. We did, however, come up with a few other strategies to get out of the decision paralysis of what do I do first??? and the inability to stick to a task and finish it. Your mileage may vary, of course, because we’re all dealing with our own challenges in this area, but here are some things that work for me.
Checking things off lists. Lists? For productivity? Groundbreaking. I know. The list itself doesn’t matter. You can do it anyway you want. But the prospect of being able to check something OFF a list is very motivating for me, even if completing one task just means two pop up in its place. It’s the checking off that gets me moving.
Stickers. Stickers are just treats, I know. But when I can use stickers to mark something as complete, I am really motivated to do a thing. Just call me a child of Lisa Frank and Mrs. Grossman.
The starting point doesn’t matter. Starting does. Yes there are things on my list that are more time-sensitive than others. Somethings can only be done after other things. But when I’m stuck staring at my list instead of actually doing anything on it, I remember that it doesn’t matter where I start, just that I do something, anything. Send one email. Check! Sticker! And then another. Check! Sticker! And pretty soon the list is getting smaller.
You don’t have to be done with the little things before you do the big things. As I endeavor to check as many things off my list as possible (“make to do list” ✅ ), it’s very tempting to do all the little things (✅ ✅ ✅ ✅) before I get to the big thing. The big thing is one measly checkmark! Yes, I could break it up into smaller bits, but it’s not the same. If I do all the little things first, I usually only have enough time for the little things and the big things languish. Sometimes I have to do the big thing and only check one thing off that day. But when it’s a big thing, it feels as good as ten little things.
Be realistic. Sometime last week I calculated how may hours I would have sitting at my desk actually working, outside of meetings and lunches and doctors appointments and general life things and that number was far below the time I would need to complete all the things on that week’s to-do list. (Meetings and lunches are still work and yes they get checked off the list. Doctors appointments have to happen.) It was eye opening to say the least. This week I did the same and endeavored to write a more realistic plan for the week. Did it work? …a little. It’s still early. We’ll see.
You can make to do lists for your author life—writing and reading and queries and social media posts—and your work/family life, together or separate. I highly recommend it if that’s what works for your brain. But even if you are not a list-brained person, these tips can still help you focus and get the writing done that you want to get done. There’s never going to be a perfect, distraction free time or place to write or work. If Colleen Hoover can’t do it, then whomst among us can?1 If you’re looking for a perfect scenario to write, then you’re never going to find it. I’m never going to have the perfectly productive day where I get all things things done for all my jobs. Instead, I will try to do things more often than not do things, and the ✅ will get ✅d . I can’t stop the noise completely. The goal is not zero noise. But I can say hi noise and get on with my day.
OXOXOXOXOXX,
Kate
Colleen Hoover (CoHo) fans call themselves CoHorts and I love this.
Ok, I’ll just say it. Sometimes, I have been known to write down some task I JUST DID on the To Do list . . . so I can have the dopamine hit of checking it off. Plus, it makes it look like I accomplished more in the day. I am both fully aware of my behaviour and yet unfazed by it. I will also waste time reorganizing the list for better flow or if it isn’t neatly written. I never write anything manually (I know some people do write their work out longhand) but for some reason, lists are the sole exception. What is more disturbing is that I keep a few completed checklists as some weird proof that I actually did something useful recently. Or that I exist.
While I don’t believe in unicorns or fully functioning adults, I persist in the “there’s a perfect time to do X” vale of disappointment. The only thing that has helped is trying to switch from a ‘completed’ mentality to a ‘process’ mentality: I can check off that I spent a focused 45 minutes on email or research or the black hole of closet space versus the idea that a task gets DONE. I am kinda, sorta, somewhat, almost but never quite successful in this approach. The struggle is real.
Thanks, Kate!
"I don’t deny myself treats. If I want an iced coffee and a cookie, I’m just going to go buy myself an iced coffee and an cookie, to-do list be damned."
Yup, I'm with you completely with this!
A few years ago, I discovered a weird little trick to manage chaos and deadlines. It may not work for you, but for some reason it does for me and has allowed me to get my demanding days in hand.
The little hack? Try not to do things quickly, but rather as slowly as possible. And tell yourself you're doing just that. On purpose.
It seems counterintuitive, but for some reason it actually works. I don't know why, it just does.