I haven't been writing consistently for months now. It feels as if I have no aim for the words I'm placing in my journal. Yesterday I sat down to write about 5 times and each time I wrote a line I felt my brain stop. It felt like hopping in your car starting it and driving 20 feet into a brick wall. For someone like myself who has trouble focusing routine and persistence really helps limit distractions. When there are noises around me I can't focus so I play binaural beats in my headphones to limit distractions. Having clarity for me also has a lot to do with lifestyle choices. The more I exercise the easier it becomes for me to sleep and the easier it becomes for me to focus. That sense of clarity is only heightened in the early morning around 4-5 am. Not sure why but that's when all my ideas come to me.
Now onto the point of awareness, this is why I write in the first place to realize what in my life serves me and what doesn't. So here are the 4 things that ruin my focus for the day.
#1. CELL PHONE Waking up and starring at aimless videos on my cell phone for an hour. I feel like an idiot admitting it but when I'm sluggish in the morning I should put my feet on the floor and make my bed immediately because then I can't get back in it. When I aimlessly scroll until my body wakes up my brain is already fried like scrambled eggs for the day. This mindless action takes all the good thoughts I woke up with and mixes them with thousands of random and useless ideas from the internet. Plus Instagram and Facebook will endlessly show you peoples highlight reels of their life when it's most likely a timeline that wouldn't serve your life goals anyways.
#2 Not having a schedule made the day before. This one keeps my ass in check. It allows me to know what to do and when to do it. A big thing that also helps me with this is making sure you have the big goals set for different days as some of them cannot be accomplished in a single day. When I have a set schedule for the week life seems to get a little more organized.
#3 Overthinking and comparing. Holy shit does this take my train right off the tracks. Doing is the secret sauce to any focus so when you sit and overthink on how to accomplish something it can be a major distraction from actually doing it. Overthinking at night also stops me from getting a good night's sleep. Comparing is also a waste of time because no one you are comparing yourself to is the same as you. This comes down to knowing yourself and knowing what fills you up in life. #4 The last distraction. Bad lifestyle choices. When I'm not exercising or spending too much time on things like drinking and beach days with friends I feel useless and unhappy. Every once in a while is nice, yes but I always wanted friends that wanted to make things over a night out at a bar. So the last thing I'd say here is having a healthy body helps your mind stay healthy. Everything you put in your body feeds your brain, that goes for food, videos, books, friends, and everything we consume. I need to do a better job of consuming more things that empower me not belittle me. As this is somewhat of a photography blog and part personal journal I'd like to relate all of this back to photography. Everyone has that one activity that quiets there mind. For myself, it's walking with my camera, for one of my brothers it's drumming for my other brother, it's woodworking. If there is one activity that quiets your mind and helps you have more focus throughout the day make it a point to do it at least 3 times a week. With that said my goal for the rest of the week is to shoot pictures every morning.
Hope this helps,
Atticus.
