I spent that terrible day and many of the days afterwards glued to the television– what a waste of time. Even still, if briefly, I worked on my query and submission letters, so determined was I, after having let my second agent go (long, boring story), to place my memoir, Miraculous Air: Journey of a Thousand Miles through Baja California, the Other Mexico. That month, it seemed the publishing world, already in decline, had stopped dead. But later that very same month, an acceptance letter came from the University of Utah Press, and so Miraculous Air was published in the fall of 2002. All these years later, I am proud of that book, and I believe it is a healing book. I believe it will be read beyond my lifetime. Like other such books, it’s a gift, a gift to the artist, and by the alchemy of intention, persistence, work, skill, and time, a gift from the artist. This is what art is.
And books, by their nature, are time-travelers. Right now I’m reading (wild laugh) about the Thirty Years War. And Pierre Hadot on the wisdom of Marcus Aurelius.
So what do I have to say apropos of current events? If you’re interested, and you have a chunk of time and the attentional focus for something complex, this, which I wrote last fall, and this, which I delivered at a writer’s conference in 2016.
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Because I’m deep into doing some deep work, this Monday’s post is from the deepdom of the Madam Mayo archives: a note about Cal Newport’s Deep Work. (One of these days I’m going to make a kooky little desk-top altar to this guy, light a candle, and bring it flowers.)
Cal Newport’s “Deep Work,” Study Hacks Blog, and On Quitting Social Media
Originally posted on Madam Mayo Blog, September 26, 2016
Find out about a must-read book, a must-read blog, and a must-watch TED Talk by Georgetown University Associate Professor of Computer Science Cal Newport, all in one handy post at his Study Hacks Blog, “Quit Social Media.”
What Newport says in that post is provocative– undoubtedly just the title will rub many people’s fur the wrong way, and no surprise, it already has many commenters a-huffing & puffing.
Here is my comment on Cal Newport’s post:
Thank you for this blog, for your TED Talk, and for your books, especially Deep Work. I am a writer with 2 finance books published under another name, plus 4 literary books, plus an anthology– all of which is to say, I understand the nature and immense benefits of deep work.
But dealing with the Internet… that has been a challenge for me over the past several years, and especially when all these shiny new social media toys seemed to be so necessary and (apparently) effective for promoting one’s books. Every publicist, marketing staff, my fellow writers, all seem slaves now to social media. I can assure you, every writers conference has a panel on book PR and social media.
For a while, at the enthusiastic urging of one of my writer-friends, by the way, a best-selling and very fine historical novelist, I maintained a Facebook page, but when I realized what a time-suck it was, and how FB made it intentionally and so deviously addictive, I deactivated my account. I had also come to recognize that people addicted to FB, as seemed to be not all but most of my “FB friends,” often as they might “like” and comment on my posts there, are probably not my readers. (My books require sustained focus; I admit, they can be challenging.) I deactivated my FB more than a year ago, and I breathe a sigh of relief about it every blessed day.
As for your book, Deep Work, much of what you say was already familiar to me from my own experience as a writer, but I appreciated the reminders, especially in light of these contemporary challenges to sustaining focus. What was especially interesting and intriguing to me was the new cognitive research you mention. Next time I teach a writing workshop you can be sure that Deep Work will be on the syllabus.
Do I miss interacting with friends and family on FB? Yes, but now I have more time for higher quality interpersonal interactions, such as, say, emails, telephone conversations, and–Land o’ Goshen!!– actually getting together in person.
However, for the record, I’m not (yet) giving up the three social media tools I still use, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, because:
(1) With LinkedIn and Twitter I appreciate having a way to contact certain individuals when email is not a workable option (nieces and nephews, you know who you are!);
(2) I appreciate the broadcast opportunity, modest as it is. Check out my YouTube channel here. As for Linked In and Twitter, usually I just zip in to tweet a blog post or a podcast, then out, and not every day;
UPDATE: Twitter, meh. Now, with the rarest of exceptions, I tweet once a month, as a courtesy to the authors who do a Q & A for Madam Mayo blog.
(3) I turned off their notifications;
(4) I do not find these services addictive, as I did Facebook, hence, I am not tempted to constantly check them.
In sum, for me– and of course, this might be different for you– at this time– and no guarantees for the future– the benefits of maintaining my LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube accounts outweigh the costs.
SPEAKING OF COSTS
Speaking of costs, one of the vital arguments Cal Newport makes in Deep Work is that pointing out the benefits of utilizing any given social media tool is not enough; one must also take into full account its opportunity costs in your actual practice. Oftentimes these costs are devastating. But fear of “missing out,” fear of admitting that one could have done so much better than to have spent weeks, months, even years of precious hours agog at mindless trivia– in short, the fear and pride behind cognitive dissonance– make many otherwise highly intelligent people blind to this simplest of common-sense arguments.
One question that popped up in the comments there at Study Hacks blog was about the definition of “social media”: Does it include blogs? Ironically, since he publishes comments and on occasion responds to them, I consider Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks Blog” to be social media. I do not consider this blog, “Madam Mayo,” to be “social media,” however, because an eon ago I closed the comments section.
That said, dear thoughtful and courteous reader, your comments via email are always welcome. I invite you to write to me here.
P.S. My recommended reading lists for my writing workshops are here. You will find Cal Newport’s excellent Deep Work on my list of works on Creative Process. And you can read my review of Cal Newport’s earlier book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You,here.
You could leave it hanging in the tree in the backyard… not what I am recommending, however. Photo courtesy of MorgueFile.
SMOMBIE: It’s a word that popped up in Germany only in 2015. It’s hard to imagine now, but a decade ago, a scene, typical today, of smombies shuffling along city streets would have been but a cliché in a sci fi novel. But here we are.
When we lack the words to precisely describe something, it becomes difficult to recognize it, never mind debate and discuss it. Albeit some decades ago, the Digital Revolution burst upon us all, a series of tsunamis of such dizzying celerity that our vocabulary is still catching up. Only a few years ago a much-needed term was coined by Jake Knapp: “Distraction Free iPhone.” I came across the term when I read Knapp’s recent update on his experience here.
DISTRACTION FREE SMARTPHONE = DFS = defis
I’ll switch that last word from “iPhone” to “smartphone” to make it Distraction Free Smartphone, DFS for short. I did not think of my smartphone as distraction free until now, but for the past several years, that’s precisely what I have been moving towards, a DFS. Hmm, that sounds a mite snappier!
And I hereby tweak DFS to “defis,” which, I note, is the plural of “defi” which means “challenge” or “defiance.” Indeed, using a distraction-free smartphone is an act of defiance towards smombiedom.
BEYOND PRO OR CON
The magic is, this new word, DFS, or defis, nudges us beyond the rigid ping-pong of pro or anti-smartphone; forward-looking or old fogey. As I wrote in a recent post:
“The reigning paradigm is the same one we’ve had since forever: if it’s digital and new it must be better; those who resist are old fogeys. It’s a crude paradigm, a cultural fiction. And it has lasted so long a time in part because those who resisted either were old fogeys and/or for the most part could not articulate their objections beyond a vaguely whiney, ‘I don’t like it.’
“As an early adopter of digital technologies for decades now (wordprocessing in 1987, email in 1996, website 1998, blog 2006, podcast and Youtube channel 2009, bought a first generation iPad, Twitter 2008, and first generation Kindle, self-pubbed Kindles in 2010, etc.), I have more than earned the cred to say, no, my little grasshoppers, no, if it is digital and it is new it might, actually, maybe, in many instances, be very bad for you.
“In other words, adopting a given digital technology does not necessarily equate with ‘onwards and upwards’; neither does rejecting a given digital technology necessarily equate with backwardness. I so often hear that ‘there is no choice.’ There is in fact a splendiferous array of choices, and each with a cascade of consequences. But we have to have our eyes, ears, and minds open enough to perceive these, and the courage to act accordingly.”
Of course, when it comes to using digital technologies, different people have different needs, different talents, goals, obligations, opportunities, and vulnerabilities. A responsible mother with young children will probably want to use Whatsapp with the babysitter; a real estate agent who wants to stay in business needs to be available to clients, whether by phone, email or text– and so on. Some people slip into the vortex of addiction to social media or gaming far more easily than others…
My aim here is not to judge other people (although I’ll admit to some eye-rolling at smombies slapping themselves into streetlamps), but to examine the nature of digital technology and my own use of it. I am not a mother with young children, nor a real estate agent. Games bore me, always have. I am a writer of books. I blog about digital technology because first, it’s my way of grokking it; and second, I trust that what I’ve learned may be of interest to my readers– for I know that many of you are also writers.
We writers are hardly alone in the need for uninterrupted chunks of time. Brain surgeons, composers, painters, historians, statisticians, sculptors, software engineers… many people, in a wide variety of professions and vocations need, to quote Cal Newport, “the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task,” that is to say, engage in what he terms “deep work.”
“Literary travel writing is about first perceiving in wider and sharper focus than normal; then, in the act of composition, shaping and exploring these perceptions so that, as with fiction, it may evoke in a reader’s mind emotions, thoughts, and pictures. It’s not meant to be practical, to serve up, say, the top ten deals on rental cars, or a low-down on the newest ‘hot spas.’ Literary travel writing, at its best, provides the reader the sense of actually traveling with the writer, so that she smells the tortillas heating on the comal, tastes the almond-laced hot chocolate, sees the lights in the distant houses brightening yellow in the twilight, and, after the put-put of a motorcycle, that sudden swirl of dust over the road.”
Writers have always battled distractions, but with the ubiquity of smartphones, and increasingly sophisticated app designs and algorithms to lure us and trap us into “the machine zone,” we’re at a new level of the game– or the war, as Steven Pressfield would have it.
Whatever might or might not be an optimal use of digital technology for you, I know this:
A book that can claim a thoughtful person’s time and attention is not going to be written by someone who is pinged by & poking at their smartphone all the live-long day.
“OUT IN THE WORLD”
Some writers have outright rejected smartphones– but so few, in fact, that only two come to mind: John Michael Greer, a prolific blogger and author whose stance on modern conveniences is, as he titled a collection of essays on his vision of the post-industrial future, Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush; and journalist Sebastian Junger. As Junger said on the Joe Rogan podcast:
“when I’m out, I want to be out in the world. If you’re looking at your phone, you’re not in the world… I just look around at this– and I’m an anthropologist, and I’m interested in human behavior– and I look at the behavior, like literally, the physical behavior of people with smartphones and… it looks anti-social and unhappy and anxious, and I don’t want to look like that, and I don’t want to feel like how I think those people feel.”
While I say a quadruple “AMEN” to Junger’s comment, I decided to keep my smartphone because I value having the emergency information-access and communication backups enough to pay for the smartphone for that alone; plus, I much prefer using the smartphone’s camera and dictation app to having to carry separate appliances, and I use these often in my work.
For me, the question was never whether or not a smartphone is useful. For me, obviously it is. The question is rather:
How can I maximize the benefits of this sleekly convenient multi-tool / communications device, while blocking its djinn-like demands, and so with sharpest powers of observation and consciously directed concentration, stay awake in this world?
I had answered this question by turning my smartphone into a distraction free smartphone, as I realized when I read Jake Knapp’s post.
Knapp’s version of “distraction free” turned out to be different than mine– he deleted his smartphone’s Mail and browser apps, which I kept. And when I Googled around a bit to find other writers who had tried to convert their smartphone to distraction free– and they were astonishingly few– I found that each had a different version of distraction free. Some recommended using grayscale, which I did not find helpful– but you might. Again, no surprise, what works for one writer may not work for another.
And that got me noodling… over the year-end holidays, instead of going to the movies, I stayed home and made my App Evaluation Flowchart for a Custom Distraction Free Smartphone, which you will find at the end of this post.
THIS WRITER’S DISTRACTION FREE SMARTPHONE (DFS or “defis”)
In early 2019, here’s where I stand, comfortable at last, with my smartphone. My defis, as it were. In order of importance, I use my smartphone as / for a:
Camera (for stills and video)
Audioplayer (various apps for audio books, podcasts, and music, which I usually listen to when flying or driving, never when walking or on public transport)
Emergency Mail
Recorder (dictation app for interviews)
Google translator
Emergency telephone
Emergency Google Maps
Emergency Safari
Calculator
Flashlight
In essence, I use my smartphone only when I decide it will serve me for a specific purpose, e.g., to take a photo, make a call, record an interview. Otherwise, it stays in the charging station at home or zipped into its felt bag in my backpack, wifi off, roaming off. I do not allow it to beep, rill, cheep, chirp, ding, ping or vibrate.
Other than the above-mentioned apps, I have deleted all apps (except the ones Apple will not allow me to delete; those I corralled into a folder I labeled “NOPE.” Do not ask me what they are, I do not remember.)
No social media apps, no Whatsapp, no news, no games.
All– all– notifications are off.
About the smartphone as a phone: I make a call from the smartphone maybe two or three times a month. I never check voicemail. Ever. I don’t know how to check voicemail and don’t tell me its easy because I don’t want to know how.
If you leap to conclude that I’m living the life of a Luddite you’d be wrong. I do make and receive plenty of phone calls– except for emergencies, on a landline. I Skype. I spend hours galore on email– but at my desk, on a laptop. On the laptop I also manage my website and blog. I podcast, too, editing the audio with GarageBand (listen in anytime here). And I film and edit short videos for my YouTube and Vimeo channels.
When I first got an iPhone nearly a decade ago, oh, did I fiddle with apps, apps for this and apps for that and apps that would confect a fairy’s hat! I was becharmed by apps! Ingenious things, apps are.
I was on FB, too, until 2015.
But I am a writer of books, and this smartphone rabbit-hole-orama, it wasn’t working for me.
THE TWO MAIN PULLS
For me, the two main pulls to pick up the smartphone have been:
(1) to see any messages from people and/or about matters I care about; (2) to have something convenient to read / look at when I’m away from my desk and feel bored.
Once I had this clear, I could formulate a more effective strategy than vaguely “finding a healthy balance” or blanging down the anvil of will power.
Over the past several years, trying to figure this out, backsliding, and trying again (and again) to figure this out, what I have found actually works is to remove or minimize temptations to even look at, never mind pick up, the smartphone when it is not in my fully conscious and decided interest to do so; and crucially, I have replaced those “pulls” to look at the smartphone with what are, for me, either superior or at least realistically acceptable alternatives.
B.J. FOGG
B.J. Fogg of Stanford University’s Behavior Design Lab has been an influence in my thinking about the smartphone. His basic equation for inducing a behavior is Motivation + Ability + Prompt (all three simultaneous), or B = MAP.
You can read more about Fogg’s behavior model here.
He’s all very sunny and even uses puppets when talking about his behavior model and how it can help people improve their lives, and I for one sincerely appreciate this. But I suspect that people with darker designs (oh I dunno, like those starry eyed newbies with VC in Silicon Valley who would launch a platform / app that, with maximum speed and efficiency, sucks the life-hours, money, and data out of you) also look to professor Fogg as a guru.
What I’m saying is, more likely than not, you are being very, very cannily manipulated by any one of a number of apps to pick up and remain focused on your smartphone despite what you know perfectly well are your better interests.
And understanding the way in is to understand the way out.
THIS WRITER’S STRATEGIES
I don’t pretend that my strategies will work for other writers. This section is not meant to be a series of recommendations but an example: what works for me, a working writer. (If you want to go direct to the App Evaluation Flowchart for a Custom Distraction Free Smartphone, just scroll on down to the bottom of this post.)
(1) Focus digital communications on email, and always at the desk, on the laptop
This is, to-the-moon-and-back, the most powerful strategy for me. (Read about my game-changing 10-point email protocol here.) I take email very seriously. However, with rare, emergency-level exceptions, I check email only on my laptop, only after 3 PM, and I batch it. I thereby establish the boundaries I need to be able to do my work, and I can truthfully say, “I welcome email,” and “the best way to reach me is by email.” And if not perfect, I am ever better about responding to email in a timely manner– since I have relatively fewer distractions!
Many people have told me that they would prefer to communicate with me on FB or Whatsapp, but… too bad! I am a writer who writes books, which means that I need to funnel communication into specific times, not allowing interruptions to leech my attention willynilly throughout the day. If someone cannot summon the empathy to appreciate that, well, like I said. (Anyway, I love you guys.)
This strategy allows me to keep the smartphone silent and in the closet (its charging station) or zipped in its bag inside my backpack. In B.J. Fogg’s terminology, I have hereby eliminated the motivation, the ability, and the prompts to pick up the smartphone. So I don’t.
(2) When out and about, if there’s a chance of having to wait a spell, carry a paperback
Recent Reading: J.M. Synge’s The Aran Islands Ye, verily, of the time before Instagram and TripAdvisor (A classic of travel writing and the Irish Renaissance, and a reading cure for “the shallows”) weighing in at about the same as a potato
This is the second most powerful strategy for me, and simple and old-fashioned as it is, it took what seems to me now an embarrassingly long time to figure it out.
I’ve always been an avid reader of books and magazines, but when I got an iPhone, suddenly, in spare moments, such as waiting at the dentist, in line at the grocery store, waiting for a friend in a coffee shop, I found myself pecking at it. I was reading, but… it was, in fact, more often skimming, watching, and surfing.
As Nicholas Carr explains in The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains, reading a book and clicking & scrolling on a smartphone (from, say, website to website, to Twitter to FB to Whatsapp to YouTube to Instagram feeds x, then y, then z), do two very different things to one’s brain. The latter literally retrains your brain, resulting in what Carr calls “the shallows,” and once you’re in the shallows, tasks requiring sustained cognitive focus– such as writing a book– become ants-in-the-pants-nigh-impossible.
Don’t tell me I could use a Kindle app to read ebooks on my smartphone; I don’t and I won’t because, again, my goal is to remove as many siren calls to the smartphone as possible, relying on acceptable or superior alternatives. For me, a paperback provides a superior reading experience to an ebook; and if it’s not too heavy, I don’t mind tucking a real book in my bag.
But, by the way, I do read Kindles on occasion, using the Kindle app on my iPad, as a last resort only, when a paper copy is unavailable. I also use my iPad for reading news (which I inevitably regret), a select few favorite blogs, and for listening to audiobooks and podcasts in the kitchen. (If not in its charging station, or with me as I am doing something like say, folding laundry, my iPad remains parked on the kitchen counter.)
In B.J. Fogg’s terminology, with this strategy, I have reduced the motivation to pick up the smartphone. Also in his terminology, I build a tiny habit: when tempted to take out the smartphone to surf, take out the paperback. (You can watch Fogg’s TEDx talk on tiny habits here.)
(3) For a calendar, “to do” lists, and selected contacts, use a Filofax
This strategy is an old one for me, tried and true. As Getting Things Done guru David Allen says, “low-tech is oftentimes better because it is in your face.” The Filofax is a century-old British system designed for engineers that is so efficient it still has legions of devotees, among them myself, for over 30 years now. My lovely and ridiculously sturdy cherry-red leather Filofax normally stays next to my laptop on my desk; I can, but I rarely carry it with me.
As for contacts, I keep the addresses and telephone numbers I need at-hand in the Filofax and the rest in a separate system, but not on the smartphone because, again, I aim to focus my communications on email, and always on the laptop. (My smartphone does have emergency contacts.)
In B.J. Foggese: For my to dos and calendar, I have no motivation nor prompts to pick up the smartphone.
(4) For an alarm clock use an alarm clock (and for a watch use a watch)
Back in the days of my starry-eyed wonderfest with apps, I downloaded three different alarm clock apps. The cornucopia of “alarms,” from harps to waterfalls to drums to roosters yodeling, that was fun. But I deleted them all and instead use a little plastic alarm clock powered by two AA batteries. It weighs almost nothing, cost less than ten bucks, and works just fine– so I can keep the volume on the smartphone on mute. Don’t tell me I could adjust the volume on the alarm clock app because I don’t want to touch the smartphone if I don’t have to, and certainly not as the last thing at night and first thing in the morning. And I don’t want the smartphone parked anywhere near where I sleep.
This strategy might sound silly. How is the alarm clock app different than say, the calculator or the flashlight or the camera or diction app? The answer is, by definition an alarm clock distracts, it prompts me to pick it up to turn it off– and that is precisely what I do not want my distraction free smartphone to do.
This is not trivial.
In B.J. Foggese: another motivation, ability, and prompt to pick up the smartphone eliminated.
(5) Use paper maps
You read that right. People laugh at me. I laugh back! Sometimes I use a store-bought map but more often, before I go out, I’ve Googled on my laptop and printed out or sketched the directions. I do make use of Google Maps on the laptop and on my smartphone in emergencies– this is one of the reasons for which I keep a smartphone. But by relying primarily on paper, rather than GPS via the smartphone in realtime, I have removed yet another reason to pick up and start poking at the smartphone.
An added benefit, crucial for me as a travel writer, is that my sense of space, direction, and the lay of any given landscape have remained sharper.
(If you love the planet and believe everything paper should be digital, I would invite you to Google a bit to learn about the energy realities of server farms and what precisely goes into smartphone batteries.)
(6) Always carry a pen and small a notebook
Another opportunity to not pick up the smartphone.
(7) Make it a habit to keep the smartphone zipped inside its bag
I don’t make a habit of holding my smartphone in my hand, carrying it in a back pocket, or setting it down on the desk or table next to me. Unless it’s an emergency, or I have an excellent, fully conscious reason to take it out and use it, the smartphone stays dead quiet and out of sight in its bag inside the bag.
In B.J. Foggese, I thereby reduce my motivation, ability, and prompts to touch it.
IN CONCLUSION
My smartphone is now simply (albeit miraculously!!) a lightweight selected multi-tool (camera / recorder / audio player / caculator / flashlight) and emergency information-access and communications device which I carry when I go out of the house, unless it is to walk the dogs. (I never take it when I walk the dogs because when I walk the dogs, I walk the dogs.)
My smartphone does have Mail, Safari, and Googlemaps buttons, but because I rely on my laptop for email and other Internet access, and paper for out-and-about navigation, I no longer feel that pesky tug to pick up and peck at the smartphone– but I do have these apps available to me should I need them. And sometimes I do need them.
Ditto the telephone.
Again, and of course, what works for me may not necessarily work for you. But may this new term, Distraction Free Smartphone, or as I would suggest, DFS, or defis, serve you in thinking through your own concerns and strategies for your own smartphone and your own writing.
DFS MODE
I’ll add one more term: “DFS mode.” A smartphone need not be distraction free almost all the time, as mine is. Let’s say one needs to be available on Whatsapp, voicemail, email or to use some other app for family or work that may ping, ring or ding-ding you at random intervals, and so be it; then, for the time alloted for writing (or other deep work), one’s smartphone could be put into DFS mode. As I hope I have made abundantly clear, this would not necessarily be the same as “airplane mode.”
P.S. Cal Newport’sDigital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World will be out next month. From what I’ve read of his other books and blog, this promises to be a pathbreaking book. If nothing else, the term “digital minimalism” adds depth and nuance to our thinking about digital technology and our use of it.
On his always thought-provoking blog, the author of Deep Work, Cal Newport, recently posted “Toward a Deeper Vocabulary” on how we need more words for “writing.” As a productivity expert (among other things) Newport has often been invited to “dissertation boot camps.” He writes:
“Something that strikes me about these events is the extensive use of the term ‘writing’ to capture the variety of different mental efforts that go into producing a doctoral dissertation; e.g., ‘make sure you write every day’ or ‘don’t get too distracted from your writing by other obligations.’ The actual act of writing words on paper, of course, is necessary to finish a thesis, but it’s far from the only part of this process. The term ‘writing,’ in this context, is being used as a stand in for the many different cognitive efforts required to create something worthy of inclusion in the intellectual firmament of your discipline.”
I agree. In writing all of my books it has been my consistent experience that “writing” is not a linear process akin to clocking in, and, say, ironing shirts. It’s a complex, zizaggily circular-ish process– to quote Newport, “involving different cognitive efforts”– that oftentimes doesn’t look like “writing.”
(That said, sometimes– sometimes— you’ve just gotta velcro your posterior to the chair and bang the words into the Word doc.)
As those of you who have been following my blog have heard ad infinitum, I am at work on a book about Far West Texas. Um, that means I need to write it. But there are other tasks directly relevant to ending up with a published book, for example, reading about Far West Texas, traveling in and observing Far West Texas, taking notes, transcribing notes as dictation, reviewing photographs and videos, interviewing people, transcribing those interviews, and so on and so forth.
If I were to simply sit down and commence typing, it would be akin to trying to cook without having assembled the proper equipment and ingredients. In other words, I need to have read Torget and Reséndiz (among many other works), to have transcribed my notes, and so on and so forth.
Not that I have not done quite a bit of the writing already, I mean, there are words on paper, there are bits and pieces, an introduction, some sections… Like I said, the process is zigzaggily circular.
I oftentimes compare “writing,” in its broadest mushiest sense, to cooking. And chefs will understand me when I say, you have got to master mis-en-place.
YE OLDE “MIS”
What is mis-en-plâce? In plain English, you don’t want to start the whipped cream for what might be a chocolate cake when your countertops, stovetop, and sink are cluttered with pots and spoons and dishes and splotches from the mushroom croquettes. Or whatever it is you were making. You need to start clean; then assemble your utensils and equipment; then assemble your ingredients; then wash, cut, chop; then cook.
So to follow the analogy of writing as cooking: reading and researching could be compared to assembling utensils and equipment; taking notes, transcribing, and filing could be compared to washing, cutting and chopping… and typing, say, to putting the skillet onto the burner… that is to say, actually, finally, cooking.
(1) Finish the editing on the transcript of my 2016 talk at the Center for Big Bend Studies Conference about the book (this is for an academic readership, extensively footnoted, and includes new material about another edition of Madero’s book)
(2) Finish a short video to share some images and information about four exceedingly rare books in my personal library, which for scholars of the Mexican Revolution, and especially anyone studying Francisco I. Madero, would be vital to see.
So that is what I did the past few days–I read Torget, I finished editing the transcript of my talk and posted the PDF (which you are welcome to download here), and, whew, I just uploaded that video I have been meaning to make since 2014(!)
C.M. MAYO TALKS ABOUT HER BOOK AND FOUR EXCEEDINGLY RARE BOOKS
Was this procrastination? No, gentle reader, it was good old-fashioned mis-en-plâce. Stay tuned for the podcast on the Seminole Scouts in Far West Texas. (Listen in anytime to the other 20 podcasts posted to date here.)
Back to the question of the writing process. How do you know when what you’re doing is a legitimate task towards finishing a book (or thesis or story or essay), and when it’s procrastination?
To my writing workshop students, I say, you need to decide that for yourself.
As for me, I rely on intuition and common sense (which sometimes contradict each other), and then, no drama, I just decide. Yes, once in a while (usually when I did not heed my intuition), I look back and think, hmm, maybe thus-and-such could be done differently next time. And whatever, it’s fine. I don’t ruminate about woulda coulda shoudas (that would be procrastination!), I just get to the day’s work, as best as I can.
> For more about the writing (and publishing) process, check out my talk of yore for the Writer’s Center, The Arc of Writerly Action.
Find out about a must-read book, a must-read blog, and a must-watch TED Talk by Georgetown University Associate Professor of Computer Science Cal Newport, all in one handy post at his Study Hacks Blog, “Quit Social Media.”
What Newport says in that post is provocative– undoubtedly just the title will rub many people’s fur the wrong way, and no surprise, it already has many commenters a-huffing & puffing.
Here is my comment on Cal Newport’s post:
Thank you for this blog, for your TED Talk, and for your books, especially Deep Work. I am a writer with 2 finance books published under another name, plus 4 literary books, plus an anthology– all of which is to say, I understand the nature and immense benefits of deep work.
But dealing with the Internet… that has been a challenge for me over the past several years, and especially when all these shiny new social media toys seemed to be so necessary and (apparently) effective for promoting one’s books. Every publicist, marketing staff, my fellow writers, all seem slaves now to social media. I can assure you, every writers conference has a panel on book PR and social media.
For a while, at the enthusiastic urging of one of my writer-friends (by the way, a best-selling and very fine historical novelist), I maintained a Facebook page, but when I realized what a time-suck it was, and how FB made it intentionally and so deviously addictive, I deactivated my account. I had also come to recognize that people addicted to FB, as seemed to be not all but most of my “FB friends,” often as they might “like” and comment on my posts there, are probably not my readers. (My books require sustained focus; I admit, they can be challenging.) I deactivated my FB more than a year ago, and I breathe a sigh of relief about it every blessed day.
As for your book, Deep Work, much of what you say was already familiar to me from my own experience as a writer, but I appreciated the reminders, especially in light of these contemporary challenges to sustaining focus. What was especially interesting and intriguing to me was the new cognitive research you mention. Next time I teach a writing workshop you can be sure that Deep Work will be on the syllabus.
Do I miss interacting with friends and family on FB? Yes, but now I have more time for higher quality interpersonal interactions, such as, say, emails, telephone conversations, and–Land o’ Goshen!!– actually getting together in person.
However, for the record, I’m not (yet) giving up the three social media tools I still use, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube, because:
(1) With LinkedIn and Twitter I appreciate having a way to contact certain individuals when email is not a workable option (nieces and nephews, you know who you are!);
(2) I appreciate the broadcast opportunity, modest as it is. Check out my YouTube channel here. As for Linked In and Twitter, usually I just zip in to tweet a blog post or a podcast, then out, and not every day;
UPDATE: Twitter, meh. Now, with the rarest of exceptions, I tweet once a month, as a courtesy to the authors who do a Q & A for Madam Mayo blog.
UPDATE Sept 2021: The world would be a better place without Twitter. As for YouTube, it has a lot to answer for its ham-handed censorship in 2020-2021. My channel is still there only because it hasn’t been a priority for me at this time to move the content to another platform.
(3) I turned off their notifications;
(4) I do not find these services addictive, as I did Facebook, hence, I am not tempted to constantly check them.
In sum, for me– and of course, this might be different for you– at this time– and no guarantees for the future– the benefits of maintaining my LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube accounts outweigh the costs.
SPEAKING OF COSTS
Speaking of costs, one of the vital arguments Cal Newport makes in Deep Work is that pointing out the benefits of utilizing any given social media tool is not enough; one must also take into full account its opportunity costs in your actual practice. Oftentimes these costs are devastating. But fear of “missing out,” fear of admitting that one could have done so much better than to have spent weeks, months, even years of precious hours agog at mindless trivia– in short, the fear and pride behind cognitive dissonance– make many otherwise highly intelligent people blind to this simplest of common-sense arguments.
One question that popped up in the comments there at Study Hacks blog was about the definition of “social media”: Does it include blogs? Ironically, since he publishes comments and on occasion responds to them, I consider Cal Newport’s “Study Hacks Blog” to be social media. I do not consider this blog, “Madam Mayo,” to be “social media,” however, because an eon ago I closed the comments section.
That said, dear thoughtful and civilized reader, your comments via email are always welcome. I invite you to write to me here.
P.S. My recommended reading lists for my writing workshops are here. You will find Cal Newport’s excellent Deep Work on my list of works on Creative Process. And you can read my review of Cal Newport’s earlier book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, here.
