My favorite tips, tricks, and tools for distraction-free creating

Take THAT, attention economy!

When you’re writing, do you find yourself flitting from Thesaurus.com to your latest online purchase’s tracking page and then, guiltily, to social media? Do you ever set down your sketchbook to take a quick glance at your emails, then find yourself hurrying to tap out long-overdue replies? Do your attempts to create often end in a flurry of distractions, many of them internet-related?

Hi, my name’s Adrianna, and in the process of writing this newsletter I’ve accidentally managed to sound like a 90s infomercial. But that’s okay—we’re here to talk about ways to remove distractions from the creative process, so at least I’ve set us on the right path.

Let’s browse some distraction-busting techniques, shall we?

Add friction—AKA make it harder to access distractions.

• Leave your phone in another room whenever you sit down to create. (If your home has multiple floors, leave it on another floor—laziness is our friend, here!)

• Install a browser extension that limits the amount of time you spend on time-sucking websites. My favorite is Leechblock, which works on Firefox, Edge, and Chrome. I have Leechblock set to limit my time on Substack and Instagram to 5 minutes per day, after which any attempt to access either site is immediately shut down.

• Use your phone’s built-in time-limiting capability (Screen Time for iPhone, Digital Wellbeing for Android) to restrict the amount of time you can spend on distracting apps.

• If your creative discipline involves a computer, try making a user profile specifically for creative time. On my Mac, I have a profile called “writing” that doesn’t have any fun apps/games installed, isn’t logged into anything on Safari, and isn’t hooked up to iCloud, so I can’t get texts there. Any files I write under this profile are backed up to a Dropbox folder I share with my regular user profile, so I don’t have to worry about anything falling through the cracks.

• Writers: When you inevitably come across a part of your manuscript that you feel requires a quick Google search, do your best to skip that word/sentence/paragraph and maintain your momentum. Simply fill the blank with a “TK” so you can CTRL-F that spot when you’re ready to revisit it later.

My two Mac profiles: one for my day job/internet browsing, another for writing.

Offer yourself a change of pace.

• Try creating alongside another person. “Body doubling” is a technique used to help folks with ADHD remain engaged with tasks, but it can also encourage people without ADHD to avoid distractions. We humans are wired to mimic each other, so seeing someone else stay busy can help us want to do the same.

• If you enjoy creating alongside others, consider seeking out or creating a group that meets regularly to do so. Meetup.com, social media, and the Geneva app are great places to find or build groups that meet locally or online. Coffee shops, art galleries, libraries, and bookstores near you might also offer similar activities via their websites or bulletin boards.

• If your creative discipline is both tidy and portable, take it to a coffee shop, park, or library. Making a special trip somewhere (and splurging on a delicious latte, in my experience) might push you to take full advantage of the time you’ve carved out for yourself and the money you spent to get there.

Treat your discipline with dignity.

• Remind yourself that your creative self deserves just as much time, energy, attention, and love as all of the other parts of yourself: employee, business owner, student, homemaker, parent, partner, caregiver, friend, and so on. Your creative work is a worthy pursuit.

• If you use a calendar or planner, try blocking out your future creative time just as you would with meetings, classes, your children’s extracurriculars, and the like. Visually seeing your art take up space on the calendar might help you legitimize its importance in your head.

If you use a distraction-busting technique I haven’t already listed, I’d love to know what it is! By sharing our favorite strategies, we ultimately help each other do a little less scrolling and a lot more art.

What’s been inspiring me lately:

✰ Sourdough by Robin Sloan. This book was such a fun ride! Also, it inspired me to bake sourdough. Win-win.

✰ This essay about (and titled) The Joy of Reading Books You Don’t Entirely Understand.

✰ These strawberry jewels I enjoyed last week. They were on sale, aesthetically gorgeous, and perfectly ripe and sweet. Talk about a Platonic ideal!