Mind Sprocket: The Back Page : Sidetracked, or Sideswiped?

I had a routine. It worked for me. I used it for a long time. For months. And then one day, I realized that my routine, the machine that generates productivity and time management so that I can spend time with my significant while being a writer, while trying that new recipe, while still sleeping in on Saturday morning, has changed. Or is nonexistent. Time seems to slip by quickly, weeks pass, and I feel like I are continuously tying up loose ends. My mind is on many things, some worthwhile, some not.

What happened? Have I been sidetracked? Oh, right, I didn’t have time to journal today because I was teaching myself how to crochet a basket-weave-patterned scarf. And I didn’t have time yesterday because I was having a deeply significant conversation with my mother on the phone about … something … can’t actually remember what … and I didn’t journal the day before that because …

My attention has been diverted. I want to do more than mull over the day’s events.

Or, have I been sideswiped by a lifechanging event? Things are up in the air, things aren’t in their proper order, things aren’t in my control. So instead of keeping with my peaceful evening routine which involves journaling as my final activity before falling asleep, I find myself running through mental checklists and roaming around my bedroom as I look for something else to do to keep me occupied from my thoughts.

Well, maybe it’s both. But let me tell you, life without journaling is strange when I’ve done it pretty consistently since I was seven or eight years old.

The solution?

“The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn’t go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.”
--Roald Dahl

How true that is. I encourage you, if you once wrote volumes (in a journal or otherwise) and are now sidetracked by a new hobby or sideswiped by some kind of Life Event, to keep up with journaling. Talk about it to fellow writers, who will be both understanding and enrouraging.