By Grace Griggs
In an ideal world I would be able to ignore the internet entirely, listen to some instrumental music and churn out an essay in one shot. In reality, I am much more distractible than that. Although my struggles with distractions (especially the internet) often lead me to procrastinate, but once I get started I am able to write at a good pace. Deadlines are essential for me. That small sense of urgency helps to reduce my tendency to procrastinate significantly. If I am not given a deadline or have a long-term project with multiple parts, I create deadlines for myself in order to stay on time.
I generally do not do any prewriting, but I do a substantial amount of editing. I find it speeds up my process substantially to write out as much as I can and then trim it down rather than carefully wording each sentence in my first draft. I have used different methods of prewriting before and while I found outlines to be helpful, other methods like mind-mapping were not especially useful for me.
I find it helpful to write at a desk or table with good lighting and a comfortable chair. This puts me in the mindset that I am actually going to get work done. For that reason, I also don’t like to eat while writing because it takes me out of the work mindset. A good bonus is having a window with a nice view nearby. As a lifetime glasses-wearer, I can attest that giving your eyes frequent breaks from screens and close up work is very important. A nice view makes it easy to remember to take those breaks. I find music helpful while reading and writing, but anything with words messes up my train of thought, so I generally listen to instrumental music. I especially like to listen to soundtrack music from movies and video games because they are purposefully designed to sound good but not be distracting.
The exception to my instrumental music rule is this Canadian band. A lot of their music is instrumental, and most of the songs that aren’t are in French anyway. I’ve found their music very good to study and write to.