One of the things I am finding difficult about this project is the self-organisation and motivation working alone brings. I find myself easily distracted and go off track multiple times. Therefore I did some research into ways to motivate myself and structure my work.
Organisation
Writing down a list of all the things I needed to do was helpful in terms of organisation but they quickly led to me feeling overwhelmed, I would look at a list of ever growing items and feel like I would do a big task and barely make a dent in it.
I then made a to-do list which doubled as a schedule, going by a week to week bases I set myself checkpoints of things I wanted to done by certain times. It is helping but quickly gets dis organised. My self-made deadlines didn't help to motivate me as much as real deadlines.
Self-Motivation
One of the things I found useful in my research was a method of studying or working on large daunting tasks called the Pomodoro Technique.
Essentially this method consists of working with the brains natural attention rhythms, I found that even though I would sit down at my desk with a list of things to do, I would get bored easily and fell into the habit of telling myself I would watch 'just one video' two hours later I was well versed in the top 100 scenes in movies but would have made no progress on my scripts.
Setting myself up with the regime of working for 25 minutes then rewarding myself with a 5 minute break helped me avoid the habit of working hard for 30 to 40 minutes then hitting a mental wall.
Location
I also found that although I set myself up at my desk and organised my work space for work, making to-do lists and schedules I was too close to things to distract me. I found when I was at university I couldn't get in the right frame of mind to work and would end up going home.
I decided to go to Wetherspoons for breakfast and do some work there. In one day I managed to do more than I had for a week. I decided then that I would set myself up to routine of going to Wetherspoons or a cafe and ordering a drink and working for 4-5 hours a day allowed me to get work done without distractions. After a while however I found myself slipping into the habit of leaving earlier and earlier in the day. Therefore I change the location once in a while to keep things fresh in my mind.
Distractions
Out of everything my biggest problem is procrastination and distractions, working on a computer results in easy access to the internet and the distractions that brings, such as youtube and Facebook. Therefore I decided that I would write my scrips in a pad by hand. This works really well and is something I shall do in the future, for one I write better when each word is not easily deleted. There is something about having my work physically in front of my rather than on a screen that helps me focus.
The downside is that I would essentially have to do work twice by having to type up what I had written by hand, but I use that opportunity to make edits as I go.
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