Paper Training

“Try looking at your mind as a wayward puppy that you are trying to paper train. You don't drop-kick a puppy into the neighbor's yard every time it piddles on the floor. You just keep bringing it back to the newspaper.”—Anne Lamott

Linda Gerber’s blog today asked about distractions and solutions. Distractions is right up there on the list with procrastination and excuses. And the solution is self discipline, whatever you choose to do.

Distractions show up in all sorts of masks, with all sorts of justifications (most of which aren’t as urgent as they want you to believe). Don’t beat yourself up if you suddenly realize you’ve allowed yourself to be distracted and pulled away from your writing, but also don’t excuse it. Bring yourself right back to the page. (I thought of going further with the analogy of paper training a puppy, cuz you know me and analogies, but I think I’ll just stop here.)