Please tell me that I’m not the only one who does this:
Okay, so I have a blogging plan, and it’s a good one. I sit down with a goal in mind, and I get to work … for a little while. Until I get a bit distracted. And then a lot distracted. And then…
Holy moly! How the heck did I end up doing this? Suddenly I find myself off on a complete tangent, doing something completely different than I originally sat down to do. What on earth happened to my well-laid-out plan?
This happens to me often. In fact, probably more often than not. I sit down with one goal in mind and get completely distracted by something else. Next thing I know, I’m on Twitter retweeting things, replying to emails and reading random posts that I hadn’t planned to read (right then). Often, it goes beyond that and I’m actually writing posts that I never planned on writing!
Case in point:
Tonight, I sat down to read and comment on the discussions that have been posted to the Discussion Challenge. I’m woefully behind on them because I’ve been so crazily busy lately. It was going swimmingly. In fact, I actually got through about 25 posts and I was almost at the end … I was ecstatic that I was actually going to make it through all of them …
And then Shannon’s discussion about removing books from her favorites list happened.
You see, Shannon wrote this whole post about how she was looking through her All-Time Favorites list on Goodreads and realized that some of the books there don’t really stick out to her anymore. (It’s a great post, you should definitely go read it.) And I got to the end of the post and was about to comment, but then … something happened. (Shocking, I know.)
It got me thinking. What is the status of my All-Time Favorites list? I have one on my blog, but I haven’t been keeping it up-to-date lately. Are all the books listed there books I’d still consider Favorites? And why don’t I have that list on Goodreads?
Obviously, I had to immediately stop what I was doing and check into this very important issue. A quick perusal of my All-Time Favorites list proved exactly what I had feared—it was not up-to-date. Well, that’s not that hard to fix. I just had to do a quick search for my favorites and add the newer ones to the list …
But it’s not that easy to find all of my All-Time Favorites. Surely, I should have a category for that, right? Obviously I needed to go and add that category to the posts that contained my favorite books …
Oh my goodness, some of these posts are still formatted in my old format from when I was on Blogger. My All-Time Favorite books can’t possibly be subjected to this ugly formatting. I definitely have to fix that …
Some two hours later, I still haven’t commented on Shannon’s post. I did manage to update my All-Time Favorites list, but I’m still in the middle of adding the category to all of the posts and reformatting the ones that are ugly. I stopped doing that to come write this post. ‘Cause, why not go off on another tangent? Really, at this point, does it matter?
Oh, and I haven’t finished all those discussion posts—you know, the thing that I actually set out to do when I logged onto my computer tonight.
Yeah I definitely get distracted. I find an interesting link, follow it, and down the rabbit hole we go. I think internet it seriously bad for productivity. I use it even when I work (for dictionaries and checking stuff on Wiki and such – I’m a translator so I often find words or concepts I’m unfamiliar with and have to check and internet is way faster than paper dictionaries) and then I just get distracted and half an hour goes by before I realize what’s happened. I’ve thought about shutting down my wi-fi and just working like that but that seems a bit extreme.
It also doesn’t help that my favourite hobby – blogging – is internet-based. So many distractions! If you find a solution, let me know! 😉
I have this problem when I work too. I’m usually pretty good at staying off the internet while I’m editing, but then I’ll have to look up a word and suddenly I find myself checking emails and Twitter and … it takes me forever to realize that the whole reason I opened up my browser was so that I could look up that one word. Oops!
UGHH so much!!! It happens a lot when I’m reading… like I’ll be in the moment, reading the book, and I’ll think of something I have to check on my phone…. which then I’ll be checking Twitter and something on there will remind me about something on Instagram, so I look at that and OH YEAH gotta look at my email while I’m here… and an hour later, I’m not reading the book like I wanted to and it’s time for dinner so I have to stop and go cook it. Technology = distraction for sure!!!
Oh, how interesting – it doesn’t happen to me all that often when I’m reading because I have a pretty one-track mind when I’m doing that. I tend to just avoid everything else in the universe. (Dinner? Who needs dinner? Certainly not my family.) But it definitely has happened to me from time to time. It’s much more common for me when I’m blogging since I’m already on the computer and other things are just a little click away …
Yep, this is totally me. I’ll be looking something up for school, and then I’ll suddenly be on Twitter reading all the bookish things. I fall down internet rabbit holes all the time. I learn a lot of interesting stuff when I go badly off-track.
I love the term “internet rabbit holes.” I think that describes it pretty perfectly!
Yes and I often have browser tabs with half written comments and emails open that I later realize I never hit *send* on because distraction.
My husband thinks I’m ridiculous because I always have twenty tabs opened at once. It’s a sickness.
No, Nicole, I think you are the only one this happens to. The rest of us are doing only one thing at a time, following our to do lists, and never — wait, did I check my WordPress feed today? I should see if I have any notifications. Then there was that blog post I left half-finished at midnight…and I think I need to see which of my library hold books are coming soon, because, you know, reading eight books at once is not enough.
Oh, are you still there? So anyway, nope, I’m not distractible at all. Not a bit.
Ha! I’m glad that you obviously don’t suffer from this problem at all. Good for you! 🙂
The sad thing is, you say this jokingly, but it could definitely happen almost exactly the way you described. I’ve often found half-written comments on a random tab somewhere, and I’ll think, “Wait? I never finished writing that?” Oops!
Uh, you just described my whole life, basically. If I could get something done without going down 1500 tangents along the way, it would be a miracle.
Glad I’m not the only one!!
Oh gosh, this is SO easy to do. I’ve been on the computer for a bit today and I got a few things I had planned on doing finished, but then I get distracted by other blogs and I have to check Twitter and Bloglovin and do other blog posts, etc. I guess we’re doing SOMETHING right? That counts! hah
Yeah, I guess I should just be pleased to be making any progress on anything—could be worse!
I do this too. I did read Shannon’s blog post and I decided to give away some of my favorite books I have had for many years. They were R.L. Stine books.
Ha! So Shannon’s post made both of us go off on completely different tangents. I’m sure she’ll be proud to have inspired us so! 🙂
This post is the STORY OF MY LIFE. This is me. I’m glad to see it’s not *just* me though. But yeah, this is why I can sit down with a whole organized to do list and I start something and then 15 minutes later I’m doing something and I’m suddenly like, “Oh! That’s right, I was responding to comments.” Then another 15 minutes later, “Oh! Crap! How did I get on Amazon? I was supposed to be responding to comments.” And then another 15 minutes later… And somehow 3 hours pass and I still have only responded to one comment and have done nothing else on the to-do list but I have like 27 internet tabs and 5 documents and 2 photo editing programs open lol.
Yep!! And then you wonder why the heck you’re so behind on replying to comments. There’s no escaping the craziness! (And I’m glad I’m not the only one who ends up with 27 tabs and multiple programs open at once—my husband makes fun of me for this ALL the time!)
Yup this happens! I sit down for a few minutes to do something “really quick” and an hour later I’m writing a post totally unrelated to what I was going to do. lol so true! And when one tangent leads to another and soon you’re like 5 things removed… and then you have to remember what was I going to do originally???
Yes, so often you can’t even remember what the heck you were trying to do in the first place. Then you’ll go off on three more tangents before you remember. 🙂
OMG Nicole I am laughing so hard I am cryinG! Because YESSS this is my LIFE! In fact, I started writing this comment, then ended up getting sucked into looking at random covers of Replica, and deciding that I needed to buy the UK edition so… I feel you on a spiritual level 😉 Hell, most of my posts start off as weird thoughts in my mind that I end up jotting down at 11:27pm hahah. LOVE this post so much- and glad I could propel your mind into anarchy, I aim to please!
[…] @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction discusses the art of the tangent, and wants to know if you go off on them […]
If you don’t go off on random tangents you have stronger will power than I. I think I get distracted because I don’t want to do some of the boring bits of blogging that I enjoy once I start but have to force myself to begin, so then I start distracting myself with other things. Have you ever gone off on a tangent whilst writing a blog post? I have and I knew I had a point I wanted to make… but then I got distracted and it all went horribly wrong and I had to delete a couple of paragraphs as they weren’t even slightly related to the post I was writing. Nightmare!
You sound so much like me. I can definitely relate! LOL I’ll be so focused and then something will draw me away. Then something else will, and so on, and before I know it I don’t even know what I was doing to begin with. I sure do find some great posts though. LOL
“And why don’t I have that list on Goodreads?” Because keeping up two lists is a PITA. 🙂
This happens to me ALL of the time. Mainly because my brain gets full of awesome ideas and then I just stop because I can’t write 50 posts at once.
YAS! Thank you for saying it! I still can’t manage to get through your Sunday post without clicking something and then I have not even left a comment. I have at least 10 tabs open all the time. Half the time I log in to write a review, but then there are comments, then I have to comment back, then I see they have links so I click, then I end up on the whole other side of the internet not writing that review or anything really productive.
I keep thinking that keeping blogger’s posts open for hours and hours must be helpful for ratings right? I mean it won’t impact a bounce rate at least since I have had those pages open for days!
Great post! You are in good company here I see with all us bloggers saying the same thing. #thestruggleisreal
You’ve clearly hit a nerve here! (And I suspect Shannon’s post did something like that to every single person who read it! I went in and ADDED to my favorites list!) Sometimes when I’m opening up my computer, I will be muttering to myself the ONE TASK I’m supposed to do. Not because I won’t do anything else, but just so I won’t look up hours later and realize I never did that one important thing. Sigh.
Yes, yes, yes! You just described me to a T. Yesterday I wanted to get a Sunday Post up. But my husband and I also wanted to go out to lunch, do some stuff. She he was all “well, just do your post real quick and I’ll go ahead and get ready to go.” Uh… yeah, you do that. Because I knew it’s wouldn’t work. Sure I got started on the post but then it happened: I went to Photobucket to download a pic, noticed that I had too much junk in certain folders, started cleaning them out, then worried I just deleted stuff that I had linked to, then had to start checking previous posts to see if now pics were missing, then got on Twitter, then went to GoodReads to check how many pages were in the review book I was about to start… and on and on. Wish I had an answer but I have come to accept that I have zero attention span. LOL
This is my everyday…hehe! My kids tease me about it all the time.
Exactly what ALWAYS happens to me :’) I mean, with everything only one clicks away, it’s only natural 😛 It happens most often when I read reviews/lists of books. I always end up on goodreads, adding books to my TBR and eventually forget to drop a comment 😛 This also happens on my blogging plan in general! I have this habit of planning and scheduling post in advance. Like this month I have my whole October posts scheduled but then I have the urge to write another post and end up posting that post instead of the original one 😛
My process is to keep a piece of paper next to me and write down all the tangents, so I can do them later instead of now. That way I can focus.
However… no you’re not the only one. I recently began posting my to do list to the wall in front of my desk to try to help me focus. It’s working a bit.
I think my comment just got eaten, so I will sum it up by saying “No,” this is common.
Yes, yes, yes, this is SO me too! Maybe it’s an unknown prerequisite for being a book blogger?? I always somehow find myself starting out with the best intentions and commenting on blogs and then that takes me to Goodreads, Amazon, Target and the next thing I know I’m pinning things on how my husband can build a desk and built-ins in the playroom for the boys. The internet is SUCH a distraction, that’s how I’m calling it haha! Thank you for making me smile from this post!
I’m easily distracted in general. I think we all are now with the internet, smartphones and all that stuff…it makes it easy to NOT focus. Finishing a task from start to end in one go is nearly impossible LOL! You are NOT alone my friend, in fact, I saw a lot of myself in your post 😀
hey, regal blog on greasy loss. that helped.