In our quest to make more time to write, we tend to focus on the big distractions. It’s easy to feel like the world is against you as you deal with events, meetings, chores, and never-ending tasks.

Those items can make it difficult to squeeze in writing time, for sure. However, there is a more insidious form of distraction, and those are the little things.

It’s the social media notifications. The unsolicited (and unwanted) phone calls. The text messages. The noise of people in the other room. The barking dogs and neighbors clattering around outside—and a dozen other things that steal your attention.

When you sit down to write, those little distractions eat away at your time and attention. They may seem harmless in the moment, but it takes a couple of minutes to get your attention back when it’s stolen away. Those precious minutes make up precious hours, which are the building blocks of articles, podcasts, books, and more.

E.B. White said, “Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.” How true that is!

So watch out for those little distractions. They are far more dangerous than you realize.

Daily Question: What are three little distractions that interrupt your writing, and how can you eliminate or reduce them?

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One of the perennial questions writers ask is, “Where do you get good ideas?” It’s a fair question because all of us have struggled with finding good ones for our writing.

The overriding feeling we have is that we need to do something more, or add some technique, in order to find great ideas. In fact, Stephen King wrote, “Let’s get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.”

So how do we put that into practice? It’s not a matter of doing something more, it’s actually a matter of doing something less. Less time on your phone, less commitments to things you don’t really want to do, less time watching mindless entertainment, less time filling every possible nook and cranny of your life with noise and distraction.

Recognizing good ideas is not a matter of addition, but subtraction. When you free up space in your mind, it’s much easier to recognize and cultivate those great ideas that are so critical to writers.

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This is not a trick question, but a serious one. Why? Because it’s easy for us to fall under the spell of doing writing-related activities while secretly avoiding the hard work of writing.

There’s that course to take, that writing group to be involved in, that new writing craft book to read, that movie to watch so you can analyze the story structure, that fellow writer to have coffee with…

The list of things that help our writing is endless. But they don’t actually constitute writing.

The writer Matthew Kelly hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “Writers will do anything to avoid writing, and do it all in the name of writing.”

Can I get an Amen?

The joy and the temptation of being a writer is that we love what we do. We love talking about our craft, reading about it, and learning more about it.

And while all those things are helpful, even necessary, they don’t actually create the words.

What does produce the words, however, is sitting down to write. It’s getting the words down however you can. Whether it’s dictation, writing it out by hand, writing at lunchtime, getting up early, staying up late, or whatever it takes to get it done.

All those tools and resources for writing can be like the Sirens from Homer’s Odyssey. The hero Odysseus was tempted by the beautiful singing of the Sirens, but he stayed the course.

It’s tempting to spend all your time on writing-related activities without actually doing the writing. Yes, we must learn, connect, and grow as writers. But when you spend time on those activities, it’s helpful to ask, “Is it helping me get the writing done?”

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