Читать книгу How to Write Brilliant Psychology Essays - Paul Dickerson - Страница 28

We don’t only have lots of duties, we have lots of distractions. Wherever we are, most of us carry a device that can enable us to connect ourselves, entertain ourselves and lose ourselves in hundreds of ways at just two or three clicks. A small minority of phones and some simplifying apps are now designed so that we experience less distraction, bright colours are muted, functionality streamlined and, in some cases, the user is required to specify what they are intending to do when they pick up their phone. But it isn’t just the conspicuous encroachment of distracting technology, we can readily find and externalise distraction whatever our digital footprint. Perhaps this is a key point – we tell ourselves that distraction is being done to us, but often we are choosing to go from the relative discomfort of feeling we should write our essay to some other place, the more immersive, the better. At the end of a month it is us who have decided to give four days to social media and a day and a half to League of Legends, Subway Surfers or Fortnite, even if it didn’t feel like a decision at the time.

We may have to discover what works for us here. Perhaps we should acknowledge the distraction and go ahead with the essay. If we can use this approach it can be really empowering. We might find that some sort of deal works best: for example, we could have a deal that we will be distracted in 10 minutes’ time, rather than right now (this is an easier deal to stick to than going for 10 minutes of distraction first, followed by our work).

A key thing to bear in mind here is that it is not too late to change back to writing your essay. We often tell ourselves that we’ve blown it, that we shouldn’t have watched those four episodes of Game of Thrones, gone snowboarding on our phone or got hooked into YouTube videos about ‘what you can do with a water melon that has no water’. Maybe we shouldn’t have – but the idea that there’s no way back, or that there’s no point in switching back to writing now is far more destructive. If you do get side-tracked – and who doesn’t – always allow yourself to switch back. Who is stopping you?