I don't know if any other Mac users have tried this, but Concentrate has been helping me out a surprising amount with NaNoWriMo. I have it setup to open my preferred writing program (StoryMill), change my desktop background to something a little more restful than my typical background, and not only quit all my distraction apps (Mail, NetNewsWire, Tweetie, etc.) but prevent me from opening them as long as I'm writing. Then when I'm done, it relaunches Mail and I can get on with my day.
It's a bit expensive given its somewhat one-trick nature, but so far I think I can probably attribute a fair amount of my focus to its ability to prevent me from distracting myself as easily.
Anyone else tried Concentrate, or found other (perhaps cheaper) ways to prevent yourself from getting distracted away from writing?
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Ian
http://beckism.com/
51,176 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 06 52
I have heard good things about it, but the price has kept me from trying. I wasn't sure I would actually use it either.
After checking out the link, maybe I am thinking of another program. Can you set a timer in Concentrate for the amount of time? The only way to stop the timer is with rebooting, correct?
What do you prefer StoryMill over? I have only been using a Mac for about 10 months. I use two other programs from Mairner, which I love but I am using Scrivener. They extended the trail version and I found it easier to write in than pages.
41,725 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 07 29
Mine is easy. Here we have two hours of power cuts per day so the cable is out and there is no internet to distract me. I just sit in the dark and type! I don't suppose this helps anyone else though.
43,109 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 09 42
Not that I know of. It shows you a timer while you're writing, but you can always jump out. There is a slider that lets you set a target time, but I haven't played with it yet. Maybe that does something like you're thinking of.
Everything! :-D
I like Scrivener alright, but StoryMill's structure makes more sense to me and allows me to focus on writing rather than organizing to a greater extent. I actually covered the issue in-depth a few days ago (squeezed it out right before I had to start focusing on NaNoWriMo instead). Your mileage will vary, and either StoryMill or Scrivener will be a big improvement over a word processor.
Dang, the ultimate in enforced productivity. Sadly, I'm stuck with self-inflicted distraction limiting for now.
----------Ian
http://beckism.com/
51,176 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 10 31
Thanks a lot for that link to the reviews. That was really helpful. I really like the cork board approach in Scrivener, but the time line would really be helpful.
The program I was thinking of is Freedom at macfreedom.com. It cuts your internet off and comes with a timer. I saw it at Macworld.
17,349 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 10 59
I use Pages (part of iWork, Mac only), the latest version. It has a full screen mode, that covers all other apps and the desktop, and shows you just a sheet of paper to type on, plus (important for nanowrimo) word count. Excellent solution.
51,176 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 14 18
I am not a big fan of Pages. I do own it, but it doesn't do what I need for work. I also find orginization difficult with word processors. I generally don't like working with long documents. My boss does though which can be maddening.
I would have used Pages, if Scrivener hadn't had a free trail period. I really don't like NeoOffice. It doesn't seem to run smoothly, just like OpenOffice on my PC.
43,109 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 21 42
Saw a suggestion to use Dropbox for making backups of your work. That's a great idea (I use Dropbox a lot to synchronize stuff with coworkers, and to share my Things library between my work and home computers), but I don't like working out of it with a written document because it can sometimes slow down reading and writing of the document (plus there's always the possibility that Dropbox might overwrite something, and although it saves revisions it's a pain to figure that stuff out).
Fortunately, expanding my existing Concentrate workflow to automatically save a backup of my document to my Dropbox when I'm finished was super easy. If you're using Concentrate and would like to do the same, here's the Unix script:
#!/bin/bashcp /Path/to/document.ext /Users/USERACCOUNT/Dropbox/
This will copy your document to the root folder of your Dropbox (I set the script to run when I'm done concentrating, so it'll backup the work I just finished). For example, this is what mine looks like:
#!/bin/bashcp /Users/ianbeck/Documents/NaNoWriMo.storymill /Users/ianbeck/Dropbox/
You might want to use Terminal.app if you're figuring out the paths, since it will autocomplete things if you hit tab (which is easier than typing it out, and also will automatically escape any spaces in the path).
----------Ian
http://beckism.com/
37,666 / 50,000
Nov 4, 2009 - 21 48
The program I was thinking of is Freedom at macfreedom.com. It cuts your internet off and comes with a timer. I saw it at Macworld.
And most importantly, it's free. I'm using it, and it's much simpler than quitting all my internet apps and having to open them again later.
----------http://twitter.com/mcdemarco
http://www.mcdemarco.net/sffms/ | The sffms LaTeX manuscript class
43,109 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 07 47
Concentrate is actually 20 percent off this week, which puts it down at a slightly more reasonable $23 if you enter the coupon code "onefingerdiscount". Details here:
http://www.onefingerdiscount.com/
----------Ian
http://beckism.com/
41,385 / 50,000
Nov 6, 2009 - 14 46
I'm a Scrivener guy when it comes to writing Nano, but I write most of my other work in TeXShop, where no full screen mode is available or practical. For those situations, I use a little gem called Spirited Away. Basically, it just hides any application that has been inactive for a given amount of time. Nothing too complicated, but does the trick.
Oh, and it's free.