Continuing along with the Artist’s Way, this is week four otherwise known as “stop listening to other voices so you can hear your own” week. The actual instructions are no reading, but really, if you want to stop listening to the deluge of outside input so you can hear yourself think, I think that should be extended to include news.
We kind of live in an information ocean with lots and lots of industry specific, state, national, international information coming at us at all times. So while I think a break from reading fiction is good for temporarily resting from outside voices which might influence your own voice, it’s not a bad thing to cover nonfiction with this blanket and just take a break from all of it.
Fortunately for me, I’m scheduled to spend this week packing things in boxes so taking a no-reading break is actually pretty easy to do. And there will likely not be much reading at all the whole month of August as we spend time traveling back to the west coast and settling in there.
But taking a break to unplug once in a while is a wonderful thing to do for yourself even if you aren’t doing The Artist’s Way or moving across the country. When we unplugged last year to go camping, it was amazing how relaxing it was. As we move to a more continually connected life, work intrudes in every waking hour. Portable devices like smart phones make email and text messages ever-present, and the general expectation is that communication can be sent round the clock and replied to either immediately or within a short time period.
It’s pretty hard to focus when you know an interruption can come at any time. Efficiency studies have shown that every interruption costs us at least fifteen minutes after the interruption ends to resume a task and that just knowing an interruption can happen is enough of a distraction to prevent concentration on the current task. Writing requires intense concentration, so a little time spent unplugged translates to huge gains in productivity.
So there are multiple reasons to shut out the outside world periodically. For an extended period like a week to really have some uninterrupted time to think and focus on a project or a change in direction. For a shorter period like an hour or two to make the most of your writing time. And for some authors, any reading at all while writing can either influence your voice or fill up your mental space with words at a time when you need to create a vacuum for the words you’re writing to form in.
Getting quiet pays off, so why not plan a quiet break for yourself?
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