Thursday, March 6, 2008

Experiment About To Commence

Not tonight, mind. I had way too much schoolwork...and well, American Idol and the season finale of Project Runway was on... (HEH) Gah, and next week Top Chef begins...

As you can see, I'm very easily distracted. TV shows...my dogs...my family...shiny objects... I need to BUCKLE DOWN.

So, after reading about one forumite's methods for staying on task, I've decided to give it a try.

Here's the deal: She has an egg timer. (Yeah, I know...bear with me.) What she does is set that egg timer in one hour increments. While it's running, she writes...non-stop. No interruptions are allowed. No phone calls, no emails, no surfing the forum, etc. When it goes off, she sets it again and goes for another round, this time trying to best her word count from the previous hour. On and on and on. In between the hours, she'll do the essential things she needs to do around the house.

Hmmm, sounds good.. Almost like a game. And I love me some games. Perhaps this will see me through to the end of FI. We shall see. :) I've got my timer (eight bucks at Target--that was mid-price range), and I start tomorrow. Wish me luck!

4 comments:

Kerryn Angell said...

I highly recommend using a timer, but if you find one hour hard to maintain then cut that down to half an hour or fifteen minutes. Even in 10 minutes you'll be surprised at how much you can write and how fervently you do so.

Jennifer Hendren said...

Kerryn,

Thanks for the suggestion! That sounds like an excellent idea.

Jen

Beth said...

Do they make egg timers that don't tick? (g)

Actually, if you have Windows Vista, you can download one as a desktop gadget...

Am thinking of trying this myself, so let us know how it works for you.

Jennifer Hendren said...

Beth,

Indeed they do. I didn't get the classic wind-up, but a digital one that is essentially a stop watch/alarm clock. You can set it for up to 90 minutes and it beeps when you're finished. No annoying ticking, which would've driven me half mad. (g)

I have to say, it works GREAT. I've been bogged down with things, and only got to my experiment this afternoon. I started small -- a half hour -- and every time my mind would start to wander (and trust me, it did), I'd glimpse my time ticking down and get back on task.

First run -- 30 minutes, 505 words. Woohoo! :)

Jen