Spring cleaning in the brain

One of our daily press priorities is upkeeping our web presence. Whether it's working on the website, updating our blog, maintaining our social networking sites,or searching the website for other opportunities, we frequent the internet. It can be at the expense of other tasks, depending on what needs to be done. And it always comes at the expense of our own creative outlet. I can manage to work for an hour or two every few weekends. But more often than not, it's clic clic clic-di di di- cli cli, keyboard tapping for the press.

As a trained visual artist I can work in a number of media, but I often resort to collage because it's portable, fast, and doesn't need to dry. I used to paint fairly often; I haven't in three years. I used to draw, weekly at least; now twice a year is a good record for me. It's all pretty much been replaced by drag-and-drop and clic clic clic.

The point of all this is that it's good once in a while to return to an old-used method. Step away from the computer and television screen. I know it can be distracting to have no distractions, but do it anyway. Now, just spend some time with yourself, even if you don't actually make anything new. You need to have some alone time, unplugged from the internet world.

I'm no Ted Kaczynski. I think that the computer can be very useful.

Yesterday while waiting at the bus, I was listening to a little girl try to recall the names of Santa's reindeer with her dad. She couldn't think of them all. She avowed, "when I get home I'm gonna type into the computer 'Santa's reindeer names' and see what they are.'" It's a handy thing, the internet. But it can be white noise too.

So spend some time with a pen. Focus on your own mental distractions for an hour or two. It's refreshing and it's good for your work and yourself.