Dec 06 2009
An innovative way to fix writer’s block…
A lot of authors (especially me) sit down to type out a story but get distracted by websites a few minutes later. The conventional solution is writing with paper-and-pen. But what if your writing could genuinely benefit from computer access (because of saved drafts, online references and such)? Try RescueTime, a free program that you can use to block access to distracting websites for a certain amount of time. For example, if you’ve decided to commit yourself to an hour of writing, do you really need Facebook or email or ESPN or LolCats during that time? Probably not. In addition, RescueTime allows you to make the block undoable. If you decide to check out some LolCats during your hour of writing, too bad! You’re already locked in for the hour. Clearly they made this program with me in mind. 😎
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That’s an awesome program, I’ve actually thought how useful something like that would be hundreds of times. I have a terrible habit of hanging out here when I should be writing or doing homework…like now!
Surely you wouldn’t mark SN as unproductive! 😉 (I definitely would, though).
B. Mac, with this website you may have single-handedly saved my grades this year, and by extension helped me get into my college of choice (which happens to be Cambridge, one of the best in the world). For this I thank you.
*gets started on revision*
Kickass! I knew you were going places, but that’s really something. Incidentally, my father did an exchange program at Oxford and was very impressed by the quality of the Cambridge students he met.
Well now I really have to try to get in…
Oh, ack–I’m getting confused again. I thought that you had already been accepted. Good luck. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.
Hmm… reading through my comment again I can see how you could infer that. I won’t find out until January, and even then that’ll be a conditional offer…
Moot point anyway, the software glitched out and it’s not working. I’ll have to use willpower to keep away from distractions. So far so good, I haven’t looked away from my notes yet!
Hang on a minute…