Routine

If you find yourself being addicted to the screen and social networking, be warned that the screen activity is now measurable and easily tracked in real time. Your device simply tracks your average time spent daily on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and answering mails. There's no best way, but remember that statistics aren't too useful to stop us from dawdling in front of the screen.

Let's be candid with ourselves. Instead of bemoaning the lack of high-tech productivity tools, we should begin with simple routine. To get myself to write, I need nothing other than a desk and a computer. I usually do my writing in my office, and less often at home. And no matter where I start my writing, I have always kept my ritual of preparing myself a cup of good coffee. The repetition itself has become an important signal to write, and almost a form of mesmerism.

I didn't go back to office this morning. So I mesmerized myself with a cup of coffee in front of the laptop at home, which is like the Pavlovian response to gear myself into writing mode. In no way did I intend to write an academic paper on Good Friday. Of course not. I simply finished a peer review of a journal submission, and crafted a reply to the rebuttal from another author furious about my rejecting his paper submission.

Not bad.