I can always find plenty of excuses not to write. Or draw. Or record. Or research. Etc., etc, ad nauseam. There are a million things I enjoy doing, but ultimately, it comes down to a matter of momentum/inertia with regard to whether or not I dive into those things.

My activity, whether it’s work or play, can pretty much be summed up by Newton’s first law of motion.

Once I’m in flow with something, I want to maintain that flow state. I could be drafting a proposal or playing Dishonored. Doesn’t matter what it is—unless it’s a follow up conversation or quick three-minute task—I’m parking my ass and doing whatever it is I’ve set myself to do, and I’ll be at it for awhile or until it’s done. Which actually makes it really challenging for me to actually sit down and work on shit, or shift my attention from one thing to another. I may want to write, but I’m in the middle of a Cyberpunk mission. I may want to code, but I know once I get started I’ll be at it for hours. And in either situation, if I’m just going with the flow, it often depends on my motivation in the moment if I actually turn my attention to do those things or not.

This is why, when I’m on a mission to accomplish something specific, I set time aside for it.

For example, I want to get back in the habit of writing regularly, hence why I started blogging here. And as such, I make it a point to park whatever it is I’m doing in the evening and turn my attention to writing. The idea is that every night, at some point between the hours of 7 and 11 pm, I’m going to write.

Except tonight; I started writing after 11.

Anyway, while I haven’t nailed it 100%, I’ve generally been pretty good about it so far. I give myself plenty of leeway to figure out where a good stopping point is for whatever I’m doing, and once I arrive at that threshold, I switch gears and write.

However, this kind of thing is very specific to a goal I’ve set for myself. And I’m limited on bandwidth with this kind of focused effort to only one thing. Kind of: I suppose working out every morning could fall under the purview of this kind of focus, but I don’t see working out as something that lies on the same plane of effort as writing or producing music. To me, working out is just a thing that needs to be done no matter what. Creative endeavors don’t quite feel the same.

Maybe the issue with attention is that for many of things I’m interested in, they’re optional. I don’t have to do them, I want to do them. And in most cases, these optional things help contribute to the non-optional things in unorthodox ways, but that’s a whole other discussion for another day. The main point here is that if I want to pursue any one of my many creative endeavors, I have to consciously show up to them. I’m not dragging myself out of bed to do these out of default.

I have to choose to do them, and then commit to doing them. It’s a whole thing.