Captive Audience

I think sometimes, the bigest problem I have, is that I don't have myself as a "captive audience" I know that in the right moments, the right situations, my focus is a laser, my creativity is boundless. But these moments are rare. Distraction abounds in daily life. It's so easy to get caught up in just one more something, anything, hoping from one line of thought to another.

Tonight I had a chance to have myself as a captive audience. I am volunteering at a local theater, running the light board for a show. It's a fairly long show, 3 hours plus, with only 80 light cues. This leaves me ample time to sit in the dark and stare. Or, since I brought my laptop tonight, type. And type I did, in the three hours of semi attention to both the show and the story I was writing, I pounded out 1400 words. Fourteen, hundred, words. That's a ton for me. And all of it felt natural, had flow.

I'll be running this show for the next month or so, five shows a week. So i'm hopeful for some awesome continued productivity. But more so, I hope to help myself establish the habit of writing. This means that I'll be really really pushing to keep up with writing on the non-show days. Trying not to lean on the fact that I've written so much durring shows, and really pushing on write daily, establish the daily habit.

Also to that end today I did some work to clean up my computer, ipad and iphone to have less distractions.  I've tried to focus each of them in on the task niche that I've set up for them.

In my mind, my computer is a device for production. Typing, programing, email, things that have output, not input. To this end, I've moved all my games to a separate login, so that I have to log out in order to play them. This should help to keep the casual logins to check the Auction House on World of Warcraft to a minimum :-) I also took all the bookmarks off my main browser chrome, only leaving my read later bookmark to help me load up Instapaper. I don't want to be casually browsing the web on my computer if I can avoid it. I'm hoping this habit will also bleed over more to my at work habits. I think over the past few weeks I've done a lot to curtail my casual browsing at work, but it defiantly still tempts me.

The iPad on the other hand, I view as a device of consumption. I've taken the time to sort out all the apps I'm not using, and really nail down the ones that help me consume the right kind of media. I'm using Reeder, Instapaper, Kindle, iBooks, Netflix, Instacast and a few choice other apps to get info into my brain. I do have a few output options on the iPad, namely Daedalus, which I'm trying to figure out how to setup with workflow to Ulysses, my writing program of choice on my computer. However, the main goal here is to use the iPad for internet browsing, reading articles and generally consuming the media I think will help with my output, while keeping real casual mindless consumption to a minimum. I'm an input junky and it's going to be a major struggle to keep things in what I think is actually a healthy realm. I've also eliminated most of the games on my iPad, only keeping those that are two player compatible so I can enjoy playing with friends occasionally on trips or waiting for things.

The iPhone is still a work in process, and I think I may keep it as a more "entertainment" oriented device, or I may move it to communication speciality, we'll just have to see.