WOW!

In my Career Development class we're given the weekly task of writing informal essay responses to chosen words of the week. These are our W.O.W. assignments. It happens that I'm reading Stephen King's "On Writing" now so I find these particularly funny because King just described them as "what teachers assign when they can't think of any other way to waste your time" in the chapter I just finished. True that!

This week's Word of the Week was "Focus" and this I share with you now:



Having, getting, maintaining focus – this is probably my biggest daily struggle. I have a method of working “when the mood strikes.” I just simply and absolutely have to do something when I have the focus because otherwise it won’t get done. This has gotten me into some trouble in the past when I’ve attempted to hang pictures or move furniture because I was in the mood to. It’s not that focus comes with pleasurable experiences because it doesn’t. There are just some moments when I can put my mind to something and most often it’s a difficult fight to get my mind to stay on task.

Saying “I have ADD” in this era is almost a joke because it was a diagnosis that came out nowhere and gained popular notoriety. But seriously! I think I have ADD! I can generally sit in one place and appear to be listening but mostly my mind is wandering and if the mood strikes I’ll just start working on something else. In the past few years it has gotten to the point where the only way I can sit and watch an entire movie in one sitting is if I’m AT the movie theater – yet another reason I enjoy movies SOO much. They can actually capture my attention for approximately two hours. A record time! Of course that’s only if they dull my other senses by turning off all the other lights and properly inform everybody that they should shut up and turn their cell phones off. 

Learning to adapt to my lack of focus is an interesting process. Mostly it’s hit and miss but sometimes I’ll come across a technique that works for me. For instance, if I need to write something and I’m not able to concentrate then I just start writing about not being able to concentrate. Eventually the typing or the pen scribbling will trick my mind into thinking “Oh I’m writing now” and the little switch will turn on that lets the creative juices flow. I would say that 90% percent of the stuff I’ve turned in as my WOW responses has been the “writing before the writing kicks in.” I’ve now started doing these at the beginning of a period when I’ll need to actually be creative because it kick starts the brain into entering into the proper mode.

Another thing I’ve learned about is listing. I cannot… CANNOT… follow a schedule to save my life. It’s simple – I may have “do homework” scheduled for 2PM but if the focus is not there it’s just going to mess up the whole schedule because I’ll sit down and do everything but. However, I can follow a “To Do” list quite well. That’s a list of things I can do whenever the focus strikes and there’s a handy little check box to make me feel accomplished when I’ve completed a task. The homework may have gotten done at 2AM but there were all sorts of things I finished before that too! The big problem with the To Do list, though, is the focus to sit down and write the To Do list in the first place. I have started mentally imagining lists instead.

I’ve also learned about the best places to read a book (the bathroom), the proper times to write a letter (2am), where best to eat my food so that I will actually “eat” it without losing focus (while watching television - it doesn't matter what's on as long as the computer is not near by) and other tasks. My biggest issue these days is how to turn my unfocused mind OFF so that I can actually sleep at normal hours. Bed time for me is usually 4AM and even then I lay there unable to stop thinking. Basically, focus is a problem for me. Either I have too much or not enough.