Distractions, oh distractions!

Wednesday, 15th of September 2021

When I saw Jonica's prompt for this week, I had a little chuckle to myself and I just knew I had to join in and write about distractions. After all I could call myself a queen of distractions. Or should I say Ernesto is the king of distractions? Smiling even more now as I change the date of this article for yesterday's to today, because... well.. DISTRACTIONS.

I see many of you publishing article here every single day without a fail and I can not help but admire you all for this. I keep promising myself to write at least 3 articles per week and I usually fail even at this. Usually I get distracted by oh SO many things! I really don't know how are you all doing this. At the same time I want to apologise for not always reading all of your articles. There are simply not enough hours in a day to read 100's of articles each day. I read a few each time I open read.cash and I save some other interesting ones to read later, but before I have a chance to read them all, new ones appear every few minutes.

As for my own writing... It's not even that I don't have topics to write about. I do. I have a whole list of topics to write about, but I just get distracted like ALL the time. Have you ever seen that YouTube clip about how men vs women brain work? No? Have a look. Or should I say have a laugh:

Of course, looking for this link already served as another distraction from writing this article. I had to look for it and listen to at least 2 or 3 versions, some shorter some longer etc. Seriously, I watched it many times over the years, but it always makes me laugh again and again. I can't vet for the men, as I am not one, but what he says about women's brain in this video is very accurate. In our brains everything is connected to everything, which partly explains why we get distracted so easily.

And how about the taskbar in our computers? When my ex partner would want to do some maintenance on my laptop and saw this:

he would say 'But first save and close all that crap you have opened. How can you even work like this?'

He didn't even see how many tabs I have opened in my browser on top of all other things. Indeed, when looking at his screen he would only ever have one thing opened - the one he was currently working on or in the instance of his work it would be 3 different applications at once that need each other to work properly.

Me? I watch 1 YouTube video, but I have another 10 opened waiting to be watched. I read 1 article, but also 5 others lined up to be read afterwards. If I read a manual on something I also open all the links to the related articles in new tabs. Of course I could bookmark them all and go through them as and when I want to (usually never), but my browser just looks weird with only 1 tab open at any given time. I must say that leaving my laptop to run out of battery is sometimes a blessing in disguise, as it closes all the opened apps and tabs and when it asks me whether I want to restore my previous session I say no and it's like a spring cleaning for my poor laptop.

This is how far I've got with this article yesterday, before I realised it's already 7:30pm and the online salsa class with my friend starts in 30 minutes. So I quickly changed and went to her place. Of course there, I find more distractions! These are of a very cute type - 3 adorable dogs of my friend are jumping at me as soon as I walk through the door. Usually I arrive last minute and if they didn't get enough love from me they would be under our feet demanding some. I found a way around it and usually bring some bones or other treats for each of them and give it to them in the garden, so they leave us alone for the time of the class or at least for some part of it. This time I had none, so I had to spend some time with them before joining the class.

I must say they're usually very disappointed when I don't bring any bones and jump at my bag and sniff it to check if there really is nothing for them, clever little beasts. Once the class finishes they all join me on the sofa and I look like a dog whisperer, surrounded by 3 of them. Dolly on the picture below learned a trick from her mum - Lady and jumps at the top of the sofa and lays behind my back, making a nice, cuddly and warm cushion for me.

Lady climbs next to me and pushes my hand whenever I try to do something on the phone. My hand must be on her, even if it just lays there without me petting her. This can only happen if I first gave Alfie enough attention, or else he would jump on top of Lady and there would be a fight! I call Alfie my boyfriend ;) and he knows that he's secretly my favourite. He even follows me to the toilet if I'm not quick enough to close the door.

So these above are the cutest distractions. Usually my distractions can come in many forms and shapes:

• let's write an article,

• maybe I'll go to the toilet first,

• while in the toilet I shall brush my teeth,

• let's fold those clothes I forgot to fold earlier,

• now I will write, but first I'll make myself a cup of coffee,

• maybe just a little smoke before,

• ohh look, the 24h mining cycle on my phone just finished, let's check it out,

• I'll just play that game for 5 minutes,

• start another smoke (I know, my bad habit is back!),

• I shall write my last night dream in my diary before I forget,

• now I will write...

• oh wait, notification bell is red again,

• Crystal is calling, lets see what she's up to... 2h later

• I forgot that I haven't made any noise today,

• oh look, so many unread msgs on TG,

• let me just check what salsa events are going on this weekend,

• oh no, I need a toilet again!

• now I am hungry, let's make some food,

• let's watch an episode of something while I eat...

And so on. My whole day is one big distraction. I was tempted to go and get food just now and wrap it up later, but that later might come in a day or two, so I resisted the temptation and decided to finish this first.

How are you guys dealing with your distractions? Let me know in the comment section. If you fancy joining with this week's prompt, here are some simple rules:

1. Write anything about distraction

2. Write 100% original content

3. Join and submit to the community PromptlyJonica

4. Tag @JonicaBradley

5. Have fun!

Until next time 💙