Rearranging and Reorganizing Myself

Hello again, imaginary or future reader.

In my last post, I wrote “I decided to use much of this ‘extra’ time to rearrange myself and reorganize myself into what I have been wanting to do for so many years: writing.”

I realized I felt I was being somewhat mysterious about what that means.  Perhaps it is obvious.  Perhaps some will make fun of me for elucidating what I am going to elucidate below. I don’t care. This is my safe space, haha.  This is where I practice writing. This is where I write the way I feel like writing.

So, what did I mean by “rearranging myself and reorganizing myself into writing?”

Well, for the most part, this means that I reorganized my digital life where writing is concerned.  I also set a schedule, and threw in a couple of New Years resolutions.

First the digital part, and the schedule:

• I found, on my computer, my folders with incomplete stories, short stories, and writing notes, and got those organized and easily accessible through my desktop or Google Drive.

• I went through old shopping lists and free samples of eBooks to read, read reviews, cleaned out garbage, and put together libraries and lists of books and audiobooks I would like to study on the subject of writing.

• I wrote out a daily schedule to aspire to, with study about writing, writing drills, and writing in the early mornings.

• I put that schedule in Google Drive and bookmarked it on my browser so that I could easily access it at any time and so I could easily make it the first thing I look at in the morning

• I created another bookmark folder called "Writing" and added items such as a playlist for writing music, links to resources on writing or related to research I am doing on subjects I am writing about, Google Drive files and folders containing writing/notes/plans regarding writing, etc.

• I found and subscribed to a few possibly promising email courses, podcasts, and other subscriptions on the subject of writing and publishing.

• I cleaned up and organized my Kindle and Audible libraries/wishlists/shopping lists.  I have books and audiobooks about writing, fiction books and audio books, books and audiobooks about self-publishing, and so on.

• I cleaned up my podcasts, removing any unnecessary podcasts on finances and politics and so on, and adding some writing-related podcasts

• I even reorganized my emails, creating labels and folders and creating filters to put emails I receive regarding free writing courses, subscriptions, etc., into their own folder.

The primary purpose of this was to streamline my mornings, my bedtime reading, my outdoor walks with audiobooks, the spare minutes I spend waiting at coffee shops and restaurants (which are great for reading books on the phone) and any spare moments I might have to dedicate to studying about or practicing writing.

And now, what about the New Year’s Resolutions?  Right.  

Among my various resolutions I included the following:

• Daily writing work: - studying writing, reading a book, and doing writing practice. 

• Studying about writing and writing practice is done every day before I access any social media

• Reading a book is done every night before I look at any videos (especially YouTube!)

• Try to publish something every week even if it is not great.

• Regular walks outside with audiobooks.

• Wean off YouTube and Social Media to a bare minimum. Move to reading, audiobooks, or focused educational videos instead.

• Find a quiet place to write and maybe a small portable word processor. Maybe find a good coffee shop in my town in the Balkans. Something warm with a nice ambience and a decent bathroom.  Maybe the one with the nice tree during Christmas time.  Maybe the tea place on the way to the river.  Use this for regular writing without distractions.

This was about rewrapping my head, my life, and my technology around writing.  It was about eliminating distractions. It was about reducing the obstacles to a morning runway into spending those precious thirty minutes or two hours per day on this.  It was about making things easy and simple for myself, even when I feel foggy headed.

There is one last technological conundrum I will describe here.

This is about the traveling device.  You see, when I am at home, I do not always have minimal distractions.  I work with my husband.  I have a desk in what would normally be a living room.  I don’t have a door I can close.  And there are periodic interruptions.

If and when I wake up early enough, I can get around this, because he tends to stay up later and sleep later than I.  But sometimes it is good to go out for a long walk and then settle into a coffee shop where I can focus on writing or studying.  In these cases it would be lovely to have a device which I can use to type, to write, and to study about writing.

Likewise, when I go to bed at night it would be nice to have a device on which I can read or listen to my books about writing, or the fiction books that every writer should be reading.

I know what you are thinking (you, my imaginary or future reader).  “Don’t you have a phone?”

The answer is, yes, I do.  I’m modern that way.  I have a phone.  I have an iPad.  I even have a Kindle.

The problem (possibly obvious) with the phone and iPad is the distractions.  The messages, the additional apps, the emails, the YouTube videos, and the social media.  How quickly one can allow these thing to devour one’s time even when the starting intentions were so good.

“Aha!” you say (you, my nonexistent or future reader). Well in that case, you need a Kindle!

Not so fast, Blast.  (I made that up just now.)  My Kindle allows me to read without the distractions of social media and a gazillion other apps.  But it does not allow me to listen to audiobooks, which I regularly listen to whether when out walking or when falling asleep.  

“Oh, well, that’s easy,” you say.  The newer Kindles have Bluetooth audio.

“Fair enough,” I say.  “Yes, I looked into that.  And do you know what?  They don’t have a headphone jack!  They don’t have speakers!  They have a ‘Bluetooth’ connection.  If I want to listen on a plane, I have to remember to bring my Bluetooth headphones.  I can’t use the cheap headphones the airlines always give me.  If I want to listen with speakers to fall asleep, I have to lug Bluetooth speakers around with me, store them in my nightstand, and pack them when I travel.”  Bullocks.  Nonsense.  It’s hard enough to order things online from where I live.  I don’t want to go through all that hassle and spend money for an extra Kindle when it will create new problems to half-solve old ones.

Furthermore, what about writing?  Well, for that, we have laptops.  And laptops are heavy.  And laptops have emails, and browsers, and access to YouTube or social media …

Therefore there is one thing that I do have on my wishlist.  I want one of those little portable word processors that you can use just to write.  This would be handy.

For the books, well, I do have my Kindle.  For the audio … I dunno.  Maybe I will figure that out one day.

But for now I did the next best thing.  I set my iPad aside for studying and writing only.  I removed all Social Media.  I removed Email and Messaging Apps.  I kept Podcast Apps, and included only writing-related podcasts.  I kept audiobook and eBook apps.  I downloaded the books and audiobooks that I want to study next.  I organized my home screen.  I made my iPad as “studying and writing only” friendly as possible.

It’s a start.