(This was a post from late 2014 on the blog from my old website. It’s been slightly re-edited with new photos.)

First, before I begin, after reading the last blog post, did we start something? If so, that’s awesome. Keep going, daily. If not, do it.

Ok, here is what I struggle with.

I struggle with a need to fill every moment with a mental fidget of some sort. I constantly feel a compulsive urge to occupy myself. Whether it’s my phone, a magazine, a TV, I thoughtlessly seek distraction.

By filling every moment I’m awake, I allow myself no gaps of silence. I’m never allowing myself to be bored.

In Die Empty, Todd Henry states the importance of gaps and boredom as times for ideas to come, and as an opportunity to organically reflect and reorganize. Those times in line at a coffee shop are better spent doing nothing rather than using it as an opportunity to seek entertainment. (which we may disguise as “being productive”… Let’s be honest with ourselves here.)

We have to give ourselves permission to do nothing for stretches of time. This allows us a reset. We can reflect.

When we enter this state, we can start to appropriately judge our priorities and how our actions reflect those. Over time we start focusing on the right things more and more often.

Please don’t think that I’m knocking technology by saying all this. I’m by no means a Luddite. However– tech, like anything, should be assessed and incorporated into our lives, not intruding.

A good way to deal with this is to schedule time each day that we will respond to all but the most important texts, emails, calls, and social media in our lives. We wait to respond until it’s a time that we choose. I’ve by no means been 100% on this, but when I have done it, I’ve found that I respond more regularly and more successfully than taking on everything as it comes to me.

Choosing the time and duration of both entertaining ourselves and connecting put us into a proactive state of mind. We become starters rather than constantly responding to things.

When I do afford myself silence though, I still struggle. The mind doesn’t want to calm down and be silent. It wants to send us a barrage of thoughts non-stop. This is where meditation comes in.

Personally I don’t practice any particular form of meditation, but I sit or lay for 10+ minutes and let my thoughts go, acknowledging but not holding on.

I also sometimes use a binaural beats app, and a isochronic tones app, Mindwave, and Mindwave2, respectively. They’re intended to activate certain brainwaves. I’ll run one of the programs on those, usually delta or theta based, listening through my headphones for 20 minutes. Afterwards I always feel remarkably clear and renewed, much like I had slept for a couple hours.

Also I’ve tried one other thing to control my attention addiction. I made a pact with myself that every time I felt the urge to check my phone, I opened my sketchbook instead. I found that incredibly successful. But, of course, I eventually fell back into old habits.

Time to start again.

Thank you for reading.