In The Zone

Image from hooksigns.com

For folks that are involved in sales, there is something known as being in the zone. Being in the zone means you are in a place where your focus is laser honed. Outside distractions are not a distraction at all and you can accomplish nearly anything. It’s almost as if the rest of the world doesn’t exist. For us freelance writing types, being in the zone is what allows us to operate at our highest power. Being in the zone for us means that we pump out the writing with nary a care. We do our best stuff in the zone and we are completely inspired.

Getting into and staying in the zone is different for each of us, I suspect. Motivating factors differ from writer to writer and may involve, deadlines, money or credibility.

Here’s what gets me in the zone:

• As much as I hate to admit it, I’m deadline oriented. I seem to do best and produce the most work when my back is against the wall. I have several clients that I write for and I always seem to find a way to put off those assignments until the end. I know, not a very wise way to operate. There are a thousand things that could go wrong and put me over deadline. So far, those times have been few and far between but I know that at any time they could be right around the corner.
• If I have a large chunk of similar articles that need to be written I get myself into the zone simply by writing the first one. When I have ten long-tail keyword articles that are due, I see each completed one as a step closer to being done with the damned things. I get in the zone and I don’t let anything distract me until I am finished. I use one article to feed into another and another until I’m close enough to see the finish line.
• I set up my environment to be conducive to the tasks I need to complete. The house gets cleaned (I find clutter to be distracting), I make sure I’ve completed any chores or tasks so that they are not tickling the back of me brain and I make a pitcher of tea or whatever. I close out my email and web browser so that those temptations are not quite as easy to get to. Finally, classical music seems to help me quite a bit so I set the mood with that radio station gently playing in the background.
• With my environment set, I work on my mindset a bit. Sometimes I’ll meditate to clear my mind and help me focus. Other times, I’ll sit and look at the assignment and go over the keywords to get some initial ideas for the articles.

All of these things help me to get into my zone. The zone is where the best of my writing takes place and it’s my own little shell in a great big world. For my writing projects that are of any size, being in the zone is just the ticket for getting them done.

How about you? Do you have a zone? What kinds of things motivate you to get into your zone?