Wednesday, January 15, 2014

A Distracted Mess

One of the many boxes of pictures to scan
 I have to admit, I have struggled today to write this blog post.  It’s not even the one I had planned on writing.  Today’s topic was supposed to be about compassion, but I find myself distracted by my surroundings and my long list of To-Organize.  Everything around me is an excuse waiting to be grabbed and used to put off writing today.  I even feel the lull of a nap invading my mind and trying to snap my eyelids like window blinds.  I’ve convinced myself that I had to go to the bathroom twenty times just to get out of the chair and move somewhere other than in front of my computer.  I’ve even whined to the girls about it while they are at work.  Needless to say they weren’t very sympathetic and told me to get busy.  So, I made lunch.

I also made another pot of coffee hoping the caffeine would kick start my brain.  I still want to take a nap.  In about an hour and a half the 9 year-old will be home and she will be distraction enough.

I hate these days.  I’ve always dreamed of being a full time writer, working from home, spinning out yarn after yarn of fiction.  However, now I’m surrounded by all of those tasks that need completed around the house and they are screaming at me full volume.  It doesn’t help that I am boxed in by most of it.

I’ve shared how I am organizing my computer files, which means quite a bit of music files.  We shuffled external drives a few times before settling on one and now iTunes has a spot for 20 copies of Love Shack where only one should be.  Add to that the fact that all of the kids have used our computer to download and rip music and I have songs on there I have never heard of and wished I still hadn’t.  Little by little, I have been listening to the songs and deleting the bad files, the duplicates, and that noise the kids call music.  I started with 75,875 music files and since New Year’s Day have whittled it down to 60,395 and that is the first three letters of the alphabet!

Now where are these going to go?
Then I decided to sort through the photo albums and create slide shows for our digital picture frames.  Well, that led to me wanting to scan all of our pictures and make them digital so we could enjoy them more than we do now while they are boxed up in the hall closet.  Of course, that revealed to me that my children were about as good at photography as they were at selecting music.  So we had to sort and scan all of those boxed pictures.

On top of that, and at the same time I might add, the girls and I decided to change the house around.  It needed a facelift.  After all, it had been like it was for over a year and we were tired of it.  So we planned on starting at one room and working our way around one room at a time.  Well, you’ve heard about good intentions, right?  We started out on task but then realized that we couldn’t finish one room until we found out what would work in the other and that led to another and now we have furniture scattered around the house and what-nots stacked on counters and a garage overflowing with nonsense.  Okay, the garage was always overflowing with nonsense, but now it’s worse, if you can imagine.

So, I’m distracted.  I just want to get all of this chaos around me settled so that the Mess that is inside of me won’t be distracted by the mess around me.  I am forcing myself into this chair and to type word after word while trying to keep the proverbial blinders on before the butterflies carry me away to another project. 
And I still want a nap!


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Did you enjoy what you read?  Leave me a comment and then join me at The Mess that Is Me on Facebook!

Other posts you might enjoy ~ A Matter of Habit  
                                             I Can't Get Comfortable 
                                             Change Doesn't Scare Me 

Thanks for visiting The Mess! Keep chasing your dreams!

6 comments:

  1. Oy! Keep at it, Robbie. We all have these days. I find when I have been hard at work with several productive days in a row, my creativity actually suffers a little because I haven't been mindful of taking small breaks. Then there are days when the distractions are endless - at this point, I'm learning that I'm most likely doing one of two things in this situation: A. My mind pleading for break to re-energize it's creativity by being distracted by non-writerly things OR B. I'm avoiding the work in progress for some reason because I'm stuck or frustrated with it. Normally, if I either just step away for a little while to enjoy something for a few minutes non-writer related (being mindful not to get pulled into anything else) or write something new or refreshing not related to the WIP, then come back to the WIP later (but not much later) it helps. I hope things work out for you. We all have to find what works for us in our own unique work-at-home situations! Have a good night, Messy man!

    -Laurie Kozlowski

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    1. Thanks, Laurie. I think that is my problem quite often. Not stopping and taking those small breaks enough and then things just pile up and drive me crazy until I get them done which takes away from my writing routine. One day I'll figure it out lol

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  2. I can empathise with you, Robbie. I'm suffering the same malady. I am in the process of doing pictures too, And since putting away Christmas I want to clean out closets because I put them off for NaNoWriMo. And my brain keeps drifting to multiple writing projects in various forms of completion. I've done the mini-break, the "couple hours" break, half day break, two day break. Blech. What really works is finishing. Something. Anything. One thing. Convince yourself that you are going to do ONE thing. Start with something small. Add to it. The sense of completion is infectuous. It seems to allow us to start facing larger jobs and really WANT to see them done because we like the feeling. It's a little like exercise -- we do it, we hate the doing, but afterwards we like the feeling. Hope it helps. I'm off to do just one thing....

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    1. Wait...you enjoy that exercise feeling???? LOL. I know the feeling, Sherry. I've tried to schedule small blocks for things that I need done and force myself to stick to it. With the house I focus on what is within eyesight first because the stuff I can't see doesn't scream as loud.

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  3. Eek. Sounds like a mess indeed.

    I can't function if my surroundings aren't properly kept - I don't know but I get too distracted so I make it a point to have a clean/ tidy work space/ study area so that I don't get pissed off and go bat shit crazy over stuff and not get anything done...but then again, I have a mild case of OCD so the need for being organized comes naturally.

    I do sense that you're going through a lot of changes which is great --- on the brighter side, clearing up a lot of stuff you don't want/ don't need will create more space for what you actually want and need - which I hope doesn't translate to the acquisition of more things that are not needed.

    Hope you find the time to get everything sorted and to get work done, too. Have another cuppa. It's allll good.

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    1. I've come a long way since my pack rat days lol. I am even getting rid of things that surprises the girls. I am trying to simplify every area of life.

      I don't have OCD, but I am very easily distracted. So anything out of place is an excuse not to work lol.

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