On Distractions

Listening To: H.I.M. "You are the one" from Deep Shadows and Brilliant Highlights.

Distractions. Everyone suffers from them. We sit down with the best of intentions to work, but as an example, even now, I have this word document open, Raptr(MSN), iTunes, Tweetdeck, Facebook and gmail windows open, as well as Chrome with Kotaku and io9 open as well. Odds are this blog will take me 2-3 times longer to write than If I had just this window open.

But then would I be able to sit? I'm the kind of person who needs constant distractions while I work. I tried it all through school, trying to close out all distractions to focus solely on the work. I don't think I ever missed a deadline. What I found really worked was no one else in the apartment (or asleep in the bedroom). As many things on my computer that can distract me, I got the work done. And well, I think.

"But you're not giving your full attention to the job!" I hear it. And I get people that have to do it that way. But I'd rather take my time, be distracted and get done a good piece of work, than to try and sit here for an hour and try and hammer out something That in the end will probably just bug me. I found especially when writing my feature, that if I didn't have all these things (and Garrett distracting me, and me him) I would have probably fallen asleep at 3am writing, I made it till about 4 or 5 (I don't quite recall). But I finished it is the point.

The quality of my work isn't based on what else I may be doing while I do it. In a work-at-home environment i prefer it this way. I have worked in deadline sensitive jobs outside of home, and it's a little different. At Options I didn't have the kind of distractions I have at home. I had access to the internet for sure, but I also had a steady stream of customers coming in, needing a variety of things copied, or sending packages. I don't feel it was that different from distracting myself by building a new playlist, or chatting with people on IM. I still did my job.

Distractions help me focus, oddly, and maybe not in the same way other people focus. If I have no deadline, I will never finish, it's a sad truth, but I'm pretty much a deadline whore. I need self imposed deadlines (with repercussions) or else I just kind of let it go... It's a bad work habbit and I am working on changing it, but for now, self imposed deadlines, with distractions will have to do.

This week I have a character to develop. My goal is to finish the main character first and move on. The problem with this new script is that I have no clear antagonist yet, and none of the options stand out well... I'll have to work on this problem as I go, but I'm not at that stage yet.

Anyone else out there like me? Need distractions in order to work efficiently? I can't be the only one.