Tag: Habits

5 minutes of writing

LynnLeave a comment

I don’t like intentions. They feel like a set up for failure. What they really are for me is a hit of dopamine that takes away the push I need to actually do the thing I intend to do.

Counterintuitive since I need real accountability to get things done if I’m basically not obsessed with it already, huh?

So, no intentions today. No stated intentions ever if I can control myself past this little rebellion.

But…

Yesterday, I tried out writing for 5 minutes while I let my (decaf) coffee brew and that worked surprisingly well, so of course I’m going to try that again today.

Uh oh. Is that a stated intention? Erase it. Pretend it doesn’t exist, because I actually want to do this 5 minute thing. :D

(Yes, I’m typing this blog post on my phone while I sit up in bed thinking about my day and try to motivate myself to step out onto the cold hardwood and get it started.)

Of a longstanding practice

Lynn

I’ve had a looooogstanding practice of counting my words as of whatever the date was during the day, no matter how late I stay up writing, instead of logging words based on the clock and the actual date.

For example, it’s 12:49 am and Tuesday now, but in my head it is still Monday, 9/11/2023 instead of Tuesday, 9/12/2023. So all my writing up until I go to sleep and reset the date is Monday’s writing.

However—

I’ve been doing so much writing after midnight lately that I’m always a day behind on my spreadsheet, and it’s driving me a little crazy tonight.

I’m sure I need to wait this out instead of changing my longstanding practice. My spreadsheet covers more than 10 years of daily word counts now. And I’m not sure how I would deal with a midnight deadline in actual practice.

What if I wrote the words at 11:50 pm–12:10 am and forgot to update the spreadsheet in between? Or if I forgot to record the words until the next morning but can’t remember if it was before midnight or after midnight when I wrote them?

I think the messiness of it all would not be pleasant. :o

Maybe what this is really telling me is that I need to start going to sleep earlier so this isn’t an issue at all.

Trying not to fall back into old habits

Lynn

I cut my morning session short. I’m trying not to fall back into old habits here but I just couldn’t bring myself to finish the last hour and seven minutes of writing this morning. Afternoon really, since the writing started late and I broke for lunch and that was what got me. I watched the new episode of Castle as a treat during lunch and … that led to more tv because tv is always more appealing that trying to get through a tough spot in my book. :(

Anyway, I’m back at it for my evening session. I’m just starting fresh with the 2h 5m and trying to finish that—maybe I’ll be lucky enough to really get moving on this book. I can catch up without having to finish that extra hour tonight if I can write 765 wph tonight. I won’t be caught up with yesterday’s missing words but I’ll at least not be any further behind. To catch up totally, I’ll have to write 1,025 wph tonight. I’m going to try, I mean why not?, but it might take more inspiration than I’ve got at the moment!

Trying anyway. :D