Appetite for Distraction

So far I've made two posts in 2007 and both of them were bad music puns. I promise I'll stop eventually! Somehow I find making a pun off of a Guns N Roses album much less sacreligious than my Beatles pun though. At least it's a step in the right direction.

Anyway, the point of this post (and we all know how circuitous my routes to my points tend to be) is that I find myself far more productive when I'm distracted. I know that sounds counterintuitive. By the way, I apologize for using so many big words tonight. For some odd reason, normal language just doesn't seem to be flowing tonight and the switch in my brain is stuck on "Hey-let's-use-big-words-to-impress-the-reader" mode. (Coincendentally enough, this same mode tends to lend itself to frequent use of hyphens and parenthetical asides as well!)

As I was saying, I find that I tend to be more productive and better able to function when my brain is distracted. By distracted, I mean that my brain is occupied with thoughts of trying to get things like done, like the daily crossword puzzle or Sudoku, or even other menial tasks. When my brain is occupied in these pursuits, I am able to concentrate on the tasks at hand and I find that I'm able to accomplish them.

On the flipside, I find that when I don't have things like this to distract me I tend to focus on other thoughts that are running around in the big cavernous space that is my head. It's at these times, when I have a bad habit of mentally slipping into the abyss of negative thoughts and self-pity. Most of the time this tends to happen at night when I'm lying in bed trying to sleep. Needless to say, on those nights I don't sleep very well.

In the past, I've resorted to list-making in my head to occupy my thoughts to help me sleep. I would expound on these lists, but I don't want to reveal how much of a nerd I truly am in terms of remembering trivial facts. Those of you who know me can imagine just how truly pathetic some of these lists can be - especially those related to sports!

Oh well. For the most part, I do a pretty good job of keeping myself distracted. Every day I try to come up with new methods or even new list topics. I would tie all of this up in a concise summation, but in all honesty I forgot where I was headed. Ironically, I guess I got distracted.

(I'll give everyone a minute or two to stop groaning.....ok, there you go!)