Close the Tabs
Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash
I've been trying to write for about 5 hours now. Instead, I've updated my website, posted about an upcoming event on social media, cleaned up all four of my inboxes, and did a writing challenge, which did not really involve writing but rather making a list of the things I like and hate (more on that next week). So, as you can see, I've had an extremely productive day doing all the things that were not my priority and failed to do my biggest goal for the year: write for 30 minutes every day.
When 3:30pm hit, I started to regret waking up so early and wished it was dinner already; I looked at everything I had accomplished and felt proud of it, so for a second, I thought maybe I'll cut out early and go watch some tv. Fortunately, it was immediately followed with this thought: No Kristen. If you want to be a writer, then you need to write.
It was in that moment that I got myself a little cheese snack (they now make dairy free Babybels!), filled my bottle of water, turned up the instrumental music, and sat at my computer. I then preceded to close all the windows and tabs until it was just me and a blank page. As I hit the X on tab after tab, I realized how simple of a task it is - focusing - and yet how hard it can be to do, especially in today's constantly on culture.
When you have a computer in your pocket everywhere you go, and a world-wide smorgasbord of things to do, it's easy to get buried in all the options and miss out on what really matters. Even just now when I had to look up how to spell smorgasbord, I almost got sucked back in with an ad for the Smorgasburg food festival (which I now want to go to - note to self, look it up later).
Most of the tabs we keep open - literal or metaphorical - we keep open for a reason; they’re for something useful, interesting, productive, or even fun. But they’re also endless.
There will always be another notification, another article, another email, another idea to chase. There will always be something that feels easier than the thing that actually matters because the thing that matters rarely shouts; it whispers, and it waits, requiring us to choose it on purpose.
Today reminded me that focus isn’t about willpower or discipline as much as it is about devotion. It’s choosing, again and again, to return to the thing that makes you feel most like yourself - even when it’s inconvenient, even when it’s uncomfortable, even when you’d rather scroll, clean, organize, or do literally anything else.
Closing the tabs isn’t about shutting out the world, it’s about making space for the part of you that gets drowned out by the noise. If you’ve been avoiding something that matters - your art, your health, your relationships, your rest - consider this your gentle nudge. Close one tab. Then another. Then one more. Create a little quiet. Give your attention to what deserves it because the life you want isn’t hiding in the distractions, it’s waiting in the blank space you’ve been too busy to open.
