One thing I’ve noticed lately is that my focus during my writer’s notebook (WNB) time has been getting a bit scattered. I usually write in my WNB at my work desk in the mornings, and my computer is right nearby (it’s an L-shaped desk), so as I’ve started writing in the notebook, my brain will get the itch to check some email or internet-y thing, and before I know it, I’m toggling between the WNB and the computer.

Not a great move for what’s supposed to be analog, handwritten, pen-and-paper time. I really value the act of handwriting in my notebook. It uses a different part of my brain; it generates ideas differently than my computer typing does. I sometimes do those mind-map things in my WNB, or I draw charts, so using pen and paper instead of a word processor is suitable. But generally, I just like writing by hand and keeping all my stuff in a notebook.

And yet, when I write at my work desk, the computer is always siren-songing, trying to get me to click on something, and I have little power to resist. The WNB writing becomes hectic and scattered and often truncated.

As things would have it, this morning I wrote in my WNB at the dining room table. And guess what? I wrote a good two and a half pages without interruption. I got deeply immersed in the topic I was writing about, and I felt a lot calmer and more thoughtful afterward. The complete opposite of the scatterbrained, divided self I’ve become at the work desk.

Austin Kleon has talked about his analog and digital workspaces, and I guess I thought I had those two spaces in the two lengths of my L-shaped desk. One side housed my computer (digital workspace), the other a clear, open desk (analog). But they’re not two separate desks, and the reality is that the digital workspace has a kind of foggy aura that creeps from the computer and envelopes the entire desk, both sides of the L. I’m not kidding that the computer is a kind of singing siren. Even if I try to focus on my WNB, the screen is just over my shoulder, a huge shiny-eyed overlord, watching and willing me to turn my focus toward its all-consuming gaze.

At the dining room table, I’m free of the screen’s glare. I can actually immerse myself in the blank page without feeling like some omnipresence is watching me.

That’s the thing about these screens, isn’t it? Even when we’re not using them, when we’ve got them turned off or in sleep mode, or the cover on the iPad is closed, their very presence in our proximity makes us itchy and anxious. Better click on that browser just to see what’s going on… Better open that app just to check…

This behavior is antithetical to what I want from my WNB. Being at the dining room table — surrounded by windows to the outside where the bird feeders are active with songbirds and squirrels — and away from any digital device, means I can focus deeply on the WNB.

Maybe I need to do my notebook writing at the dining room table every morning.