6. Turn off your phone and ignore the Internet
We live in a digital world where we seem to spend half our lives staring at a screen – television, Blackberries, smart phones, iPads or the Internet. It becomes a hard habit to break, but when you’re writing, you should write.
Resist the temptation to check your Twitter feed, refresh your Facebook page or peruse other social media during a writing task.
[div class=”ads-right”] [end-div]If you add it all up, you would be shocked by how much productive time is fragmented and wasted while surfing the Internet.
When writer’s block hits, it seems plausible enough to want to take a break and do something else for a few minutes.
However, before you know it you’ve played seventeen online chess games against some guy in Bhutan, or watched every NBA basketball highlight for the past week.
Needless to say, this does not move your writing project forward. If you need some help staying on track, try using a timer. Some writers find that setting a timer for an hour or two reminds them to do nothing but write until the timer goes off.
Whether you use a quietly ticking timer or a silent one is your choice, but if it helps you focus on the job, it’s definitely worth a try. A timer’s other function is to remind you to take a five or ten-minute break every so often.
All work and no play gives you “mouse cramps” and a sore neck.