I thought I was done with this task, but in fact, I realized this morning that I have further paring down and prioritizing to do.
In order to reach the finish line for NaNoWriMo and be declared a winner according to its guidelines and my own goals, I need to minimize the potential for distractions on my computer and the Internet.
So I've done (or will do) the following:
- Cut the number of RSS feeds I follow using Bloglines (from 69 to 47, currently). If I don't read a site daily, it got cut.
- Collapse the RSS feed menu so that it shows categories only, not individual feeds. Less visual temptation to read "extra" stuff.
- Review RSS feeds at night only (rather than in the morning first thing) to preserve a couple of hours during my peak efficiency period for NaNoWriMoing.
- Use Seesmic, TweetDeck, or my iPhone to interact with Twitter and Facebook rather than going to the sites themselves (less potential to get sucked into the vortex of each site)
- Limit Twitter and Facebook time (whatever the interface) -- amount yet to be determined, but I'll figure it out by 12:01 tomorrow morning!
And of course there's all the standard stuff of turning off my browser when I'm writing, not taking calls or texts, not checking email, using a stripped-down writing program, and whatever else I know will float my NaNoWriMo boat.
It's the littler stuff that can get in my way, so I'm trying to take care of it now.
(Like, I need my NaNoWriMo survival kit ready at hand and not necessarily in a carrying bag. Little things like that.)
Vroom, vroom!
