Getting off to a good start every morning is important for writers with stories on their minds. Here are some ideas that might save you a bit of time in those wee hours o' the morn.
1. Use a French press.
No having to wait for the percolation. No depending on the clean operation of the pause-and-serve feature. Spills, after all, keep you from your work station even longer. Those one-and-a-half to two minutes could make all the difference between catching that idea worded to your liking or having to settle for the default sentence strung together by the limits of your short-term.
French press is where it's at. Take it to your desk with you, but make sure you initially pour in enough creamer for a few warm-ups straight from the coffee maker. Sit back and guzzle. You will get a good three cups. That should suffice at least until 11.
2. Autonomize your dog.
The little furry friend wants in and out for potty breaks or just to chase a squirrel along both fence lines. Leave the door open. She doesn't have thumbs to turn that doorknob, so her sense of autonomy suffers.
When she's in, she wants out. When she's out, she wants in. Leave the door cracked for her. To hell with it. A house can always use a fresh flow of air. It's getting a bit too chilly now for many flying insects, so take the risk.
The computer needs more attention than your anxious pet. Only one offers you unconditional love. Take advantage of it.
3. Run through your social networking sites first.
Face it--even if you ignore all browsers in a daily attempt to focus on working only with your word processing program, all those unread emails, tweets, and Facebook updates swirl around in the back of your head. Get them out of the way first.
The trick is to limit your time involvement in these sites during the early hours. You don't want to look at the clock and see it's almost noon and that you've been doing nothing but blogging for four hours. But do scan through your pages to prioritize important information that you feel you will have to get back to. Who knows? Something somebody posts could be exactly what you need to read that day to help with your next writing hurdle.
Ahhh, the art of productively procrastinating. Everybody has the same 24 hours in a day. Some of us use part of that time wisely...to blog to ourselves.
Surely, there has to be some afternoon procrastination practices. I'll get into those later.
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