Things that break your concentration?

[topace]

When you are concentrating on writing, what things tend to break your concentration?

For me, it's the temperature. If it's too cold, I can't focus on my writing and it stutters along. Also if I'm hungry and/or sick will break my concentration.

I'll also admit to having a bout of laziness every so often, but that's more of a mental problem that I can easily deal with. Music tends to change that mood in a hurry.

What about you?

 

[SamScribble]

I find that three naked ladies draping themselves about my desk will break my concentration every time. One I can cope with - no problem. Two is a little more difficult. But three ... three just messes with my mind. Happily (in some ways), this is not a situation that arises very often. If it did, I would get very little work done.

 

[Handley_Page]

I find that three naked ladies draping themselves about my desk will break my concentration every time. One I can cope with - no problem. Two is a little more difficult. But three ... three just messes with my mind. Happily (in some ways), this is not a situation that arises very often. If it did, I would get very little work done.

Personally, two will do it for me every time.

 

[oggbashan]

Personally, two will do it for me every time.

At my age, one is more than enough.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Naked ladies are no problem. I saw more naked women in my hospital office than youre likely to see at a nude bar. I recall one good looking lady who sat in the chair and let her kid undress her! So I learned to steel myself, to be professional.

What breaks my concentration are phone calls and visitors.

 

[Lokishoney]

Visitors and phone calls. People tend to assume when you work from home that you don't have a "real" job and can just stop cold and chit-chat about absolutely nothing to amuse them. And that you'll have no problem reconnecting back into the train of thought they broke you away from.

I am seriously considering wiring the doorknob of my work study to a car battery.

 

[topace]

Visitors and phone calls. People tend to assume when you work from home that you don't have a "real" job and can just stop cold and chit-chat about absolutely nothing to amuse them. And that you'll have no problem reconnecting back into the train of thought they broke you away from.

I am seriously considering wiring the doorknob of my work study to a car battery.

Then I'm glad I get almost no visitors on my days off work at Superstore, cause those are my days to work on my own company!

 

[Desiremakesmeweak]

Basically - nothing. Like someone said a long time ago: "tapping away in a tin shed under a blazing noonday sun, to the sound of a lone fly buzzin'."

But I totally agree about people thinking that if you work from home et cetera.

Which is why I only write about stuff that really switches something on for me and then I go for it and zone out to all else. I think I've always been able to do that but now I can do it BETTER!

Writing something really thrilling and interesting is just so intensely satisfying and engaging for me. And probably BECAUSE of the way other people and external things can try to draw your attention away for no good reason, I only ever want to write stuff when it/the ideas really REALLY capture me deeply.

 

[loquere]

Boobs and Wars

 

[sr71plt]

telephone calls.

 

[3113]

I'm like Desiremakes there. If I'm really and truly zoned in and the story is writing itself, then nothing can distract me. The house could burn down around me and I wouldn't notice or stop writing. I hear nothing, I notice nothing--only the writing exists (this, by the way, is why I'm complete shit at multi-tasking. I'm pretty much all-or-nothing when it comes to tasks).

But if I'm not fully zoned in, if I'm having a hard time getting something right or the story isn't flowing or if I really need to go over something carefully, then just about anything can distract me. And being that I'm trying so hard to get it right, the distraction is rarely welcome. I'd probably snap at three gorgeous men whispering propositions in my ear at such times. "I'm trying to fix this, damn it. Go away!"

 

[TE999]

Only two things can derail my concentration; when my muse decamps for Mount Olympus and the bugling of my spouse from the nether reaches of my domicile.

 

[Handley_Page]

The sounds of a major catastrophe from downstairs or outside.

 

[RjThoughts]

My wife certainly does!

Pretty women at cafes when I'm trying to behave.

 

[lovecraft68]

My wife when she decides she's going to bed and doesn't want to go alone.

Any call that starts with the words, "Hey dad, I need...."