Originally Posted 2/21/13
There are days where turning off the computer feels like a defeat. I turn off the computer at the end of my daily writing goals. Sometimes I have a number of words to write, sometimes I’m looking to edit a certain number of pages, sometimes I’m sending queries. Whatever it is, I try to hit that goal.
There are days time flies and I find myself at 4pm staring at the computer cursing myself because my day was lost to non-writing things. I kick myself on those days not just because I haven’t done everything I wanted, but because it means I’m off schedule.
Despite my boisterous personality type I am someone who thrives on schedules. At the beginning of each school year I make a color coded schedule on Excel. It doesn’t matter that I’m not in class right now and that I set my own hours for work, the semester schedule is burned into my psyche. Invariably I stick to this schedule for a matter of hours before it all falls apart. And then I freak out.
Police have something they call the Broken Windows Theory, the belief that a community that tolerates broken windows will also be plagued by more serious crimes. Psychologists (like Gretchen Rubin whose article I linked to) have taken the Broken Windows Theory and applied it to daily life. All of us have some tiny thing that makes them feel out of control.
For me, getting off schedule is a broken window.
What is your Broken Window?