Is your phone getting in the way of your writing?

If you write, you’re probably already very aware of how easily all the distractions of email, social media and the internet can steal your writing time.

Just how crucial it is to carve out time for thinking and writing is the subject of research and inquiry for Cal Newport. His book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, and his newsletter and short articles, are some of my favourite sources of support and inspiration.

This week, Newport’s newsletter pointed me to a very real example of the profound positive effect that limiting phone use can have on our ability to produce ‘deep work.’ The example is that described by Adam Weiss, a doctoral student in Chemistry at the University of Chicago. In February 2022, Weiss published a column article in Nature in which he shared the story of the drastic action he decided to take, having ‘hit a rut’ in his studies. Realising that, although he was putting in increasingly longer hours, his work ‘felt chaotic and disorganized,’ Weiss writes:

‘As I began to search for the cause of my struggles, I became increasingly aware that my ‘quiet time’ at the lab bench — for instance, when I was running chromatography columns or microscopy experiments — was anything but. Instead of thinking about science, I was watching television or interacting with social media on my smartphone… I would come home from a long day in the lab and respond to e-mails or Slack messages over dinner or in bed.’

Weiss began to limit time on his smartphone, replacing it during work hours with a phone with basic features. He also implemented ideas from Digital Minimalism, another of Newport’s books. As a result, he has experienced an increase in creativity, focus and engagement, and a decrease in anxiety

The ‘quiet time’ that Weiss noticed he was missing is crucial for writers. Quiet time is time to dream, time to think, time to roll words around in our heads, as well as time to scribble ideas in a notebook or try things out on the white page of a blank screen.

But how easy it is to open our eyes in the morning, reach for our phones and begin to scroll. How many of us, faced with ten or fifteen minutes of time in a waiting room or meeting room, allow ourselves to be distracted by a slab of glowing glass, rather than letting our minds wander for a while? We must check our email inboxes, our calendars, perhaps our Twitter or Instagram. We must keep in touch at all times with what is going on.

Or perhaps not.

Perhaps by letting ourselves off the hook, allowing ourselves to switch off from the 24/7, always-on world, we’ll get in touch with something else again, something much more urgent and important.

Starting a new notebook

I’ve just cracked open a new notebook, fresh for a period of much longed-for time to write and create.

(And hoping I’m not tempting Fate here.)

Like most writers and creatives, I have a cupboard full of notebooks because keeping a notebook has been a lifelong practice. There are few things as full of promise as smoothing back the cover of a brand new notebook. This summer, mine is this Moleskine. I chose it because it has a whopping 400 pages - plenty to keep me going through July and August.

Like most writers, I am very particular about my notebooks. To be honest, I fell out of love with Moleskine for a few years because I find that the paper, whilst deliciously smooth and the distinctive creamy colour that we all associate with Moleskine, is also a little too thin for me. I don’t like show-through. For a while, I experimented with these from Leuchtturm. The paper is so good, but they are pricey, especially when you go through as many notebooks as I tend to do, and I’m really not a fan of a hard cover. (However, if you like numbered pages, this might be the notebook for you .)

I then stumbled across these by Clairefontaine, the company that supplies the paper for Leuchtturm. They are so much cheaper and generally very good if you like to write with fountain pen or brush pen, or paint with watercolour, or glue things into your notebook. The paper is beautiful and really holds up.

Over the years, I’ve also flirted with dot grid paper, but I’ve concluded that the paper just has to be plain for me. And I can’t abide writing on lined paper.

My other requirement is that the covers of my notebooks are as plain as possible. Perhaps this is a hangover from all those childhood Christmases when kind relatives would buy Sophie-the-budding-writer the most exquisite journals with embellished covers. They would sit on my desk untouched because I could never bring myself to sully their perfection with my messy, unedited words. No, my notebook needs to be a place where I can think out loud, scribble, experiment; a space that can safely contain my unedited self.

I’m in awe of Austin Kleon’s three-notebook system. Inspired by Kleon (because which creative person isn’t?) I did once try to keep a small logbook alongside my notebook - but my mind and my life just don’t work in this way and everything just ended up in the one bigger book.

Something I do have in common with Kleon’s process, though, is that I have a ritual for beginning a new notebook. I like to decide upon something or someone to serve as the notebook’s presiding spirit or inspiration. This summer, it’s a little owl. Owls have always felt significant to me (maybe because of the associations with my name) and I bought this stamp fifteen years ago in Vancouver. It’s made from a design by the artist Ryan Cranmer.

close-up image of printed owl stamp by artist Ryan Cranmer

I often copy out a piece of text or a poem that I’d like to adopt as my guide. Here’s Mary Oliver’s poem ‘In Blackwater Woods’ from Devotion, the new Selected, published at the end of last year.

Image of poem copied into notebook and Mary Oliver’s Devotions.

I also lit my candles and did a reading from the beautiful The Wild Unknown Archetypes deck by Kim Krans.

Notebook sketch of card reading and round cards from The Wild Unknown Archetype deck.

Of course, the most important thing about a notebook for any writer is to use it.

I’m quietly excited at the prospect of a summer of writing and dreaming.