Making writing enjoyable
Photo by Marco Verch on CCNULL
The average human has 70,000 thoughts a day and it has never been more difficult to organise these thoughts onto the page and construct a piece of writing worth reading.
How do we find our flow? As I mentioned in my last piece, flow state creativity involves a very specific form of attention.
In Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi writes, ‘Entropy is the normal state of consciousness – a condition that is neither useful nor enjoyable.’ When we are confronted with a blank page, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. By setting goals and creating the right environment, it’s possible to reduce our cognitive load and enjoy writing.
Feedback markers
Goals for writing might involve:
an amount of words
an amount of time
reaching the end of a particular section.
This allows us to channel our efforts into a specific, measurable task.
Reaching a goal unlocks a feeling of achievement that releases dopamine.
Csikszentmihalyi notes that enjoyment is possible only when we meet or exceed our expectations.
Expectation management
What makes a goal ‘achievable’? Ernest Hemmingway kept a calendar to track the number of words he wrote each day when he was working on a novel. By auditing our habits, we can better set expectations for writing to avoid disappointment.
Having done it for years, my own audits reveal that those long, interrupted hours of writing never actually materialise. On any given day, I might not be able to finish a section, but reliably I can write for 20 minutes. I’ve found that isolating 10–30 minutes to work on a task with absolute focus has reaped better results than hours of dispersed attention.
A (temporarily) distraction-free environment
Once we have clear, achievable writing goals set, we need to optimise our environment for flow. Phones, watches and computers are constantly buzzing with notifications, so should be avoided for the period we aim to be in flow.
Setting a timer is a good way to track progress. The pomodoro technique – which involves 25 minutes of work with 5 minutes break – gets its name from the tomato-shaped kitchen timer its inventor used to track time when they were studying at university.
Food for thought
In the final instalment of this series on flow, I’ll discuss feedback loops and novelty. I’ll leave you with these questions to reflect on in the meantime.
What is an achievable goal for my writing today?
What are the things that are most likely to distract me?
How, where and when can I access a period of uninterrupted time without distraction?
