Infinite Loop – Katie L. Carroll

It’s too easy to get caught up in what I call the Infinite Loop, which I’ve blogged about in the past (here and a similar guest post here). Basically the Infinite Loop is a cycle of online checking that just keeps cycling back to the beginning.

For example, I’ll be on the Internet to check my personal email account, then I’ll check my email account I use for the blog and author correspondence, then my editor email, then I’ll check in on Facebook and Twitter, maybe then I’ll check my website stats for the day and reply to comments on my blog, then my Twitter account might ping and I’ll go check to see what’s going on there again, and so on and so forth. By the time I’ve gone through all my checks so much time has passed, I’ll have to start all over again, and by then I’m so stuck in the Infinite Loop, I’m like a hamster running in one of those wheels who’s never gonna get out.

Part of the reason why it’s so hard to get out is because I’m so connected all the time with my phone, which is pretty much never turned off these days. It’s so convenient not to have to turn on my laptop just to check my email, but it’s ON All THE TIME! And I usually boot up my laptop when I have an hour or two when the boys nap in the afternoon. I’ll have all the best intentions of going on to write, but then I decide “just to check my email” and BAM, three hours have gone by and The Boy is up from his nap needing attention and The Prince needs to be nursed.

I’m a work-at-home mom who writes and edits, i.e. I’m home with just the kiddos all day and it’s often hard to feel connected to the outside, adult world. The Internet is great for that, but you gotta set some limits. There are all kinds of things you can do to keep from getting stuck in the Infinite Loop for too long from the simple set-a-timer and then sign off to programs that block your Internet connection for a set amount of time.

But I’m not really interested in discussing that right now. What I really want to talk about is why I get stuck in the Loop. I think I’ve pinned it down to not wanting to miss anything. The Internet is such a wide, awesome resource for connecting. I don’t want to miss that latest interesting or important news bit, I don’t want to miss that so-and-so agent is having a pitch contest, I don’t want to miss that cutie little picture of my friend’s daughter.

Here’s the rub, though. If I don’t choose to disconnect and miss those “important” Internet things, I’m going to miss out on a lot more. I’m going to miss having some real down time for myself, I’m going to miss important writing time, I’m going to miss important reading time, I’m going to miss letting my brain wander free without stimulation, I might even miss a precious moment or two with the kiddos.

So right here, right now I’m going to give myself permission to miss stuff on the Internet. If the news is really worth hearing, I’ll eventually hear it. There is always some kind of pitching contest going on, and besides, I can always query my next project without any kind of contest. That friend with the cutie daughter posts plenty of pictures, so missing a few won’t be a big deal.

And I’m going to give you permission as well. Don’t feel like you have to answer every email as it comes in; don’t let yourself be constantly be bombarded by your Twitter feed; heck, I’ll even say don’t read my blog unless you feel really compelled to and have the time. Because if we don’t step away from the keyboard or smartphone, step out of the Infinite Loop, and allow ourselves to miss all those wonderful (and admittedly often dumb) things on the Internet, then we’re gonna miss out an awful lot on real life. And I don’t know about you, but I’m not ready to give up my real life for a virtual one.

(Update: I have since joined twitter @katielcarroll and while it certainly does add to my Infinite Loop, well it’s proving to be entertaining and a good networking tool.)

So there’s this thing that sometimes happens to me when I get on the Internet…on those days when I just can’t focus on my WIP or my editorial work. When I log on (okay, really I just click on b/c my whole house is set up for wireless connection and I don’t have to really ‘log on’ anymore…and my smartphone is always tapped into the Internet), I find myself what I like to refer to as ‘quagmired’ in the Internet.

The first thing I generally do is check my personal email: read all my new messages, delete most of them, respond to a few, and file a few for future reference. Then I often check Facebook…just for a few minutes to see what people have posted since the last time I was on or to maybe jot down an update of my own.

Then I check my second email account. This one is more of an authorial/editorial account where I correspond with many of my author friends (some of this is done on the personal account as well), get my update feeds for several Yahoo groups I’m in, and for all my general editorial stuff with the Muse. Usually a quick Facebook check happens here, and perhaps an update on Goodreads.

My third email account is strictly for edits/correspondence with authors whose books I’m editing. (Oh, and this is the one that’s linked into my blogger account, so when I subscribe to receive comment notifications from a blog feed, it gets sent here.) At any point along here stick in a stats check on my book on Amazon rankings.

If I have a blog post up for the day, I will usually go in and check out my stats and then reply to any comments. Or I’ll work on a post for the next day. Then I might peruse some of the blogs I follow. Then I’m likely to head over to Verla Kay’s—soon to be in conjunction with SCBWI—blueboards (if you’re a kidlit writer, you should totally be on these). Of course, then I check Facebook.

And forget about productivity if I have anything out on submission; whatever email account is the contact will incessantly get checked all day like I have some sort of nervous tic.

But that’s not where it stops. No, because by now so much time has passed that I need to start the whole cycle over. Personal email account: check. Facebook: check. Authorial/editorial email account: check. Editing email account: check. Facebook: check. Website: check. Amazon: check. Blueboards: check. And then I’m back at the beginning and I do it all again. If eyes could get whiplash, well, I’d have to go see a specialist at this point.

I call this getting stuck in the Infinite Loop.

So I try to imagine if I was more involved in other social media sites, like Twitter and Pinterest. Sites that maybe would help me market my writing platform if I used them. But then I panic about the thought of adding more into the Infinite Loop. What if the Loop got so big it didn’t just suck me in on the occasional day? What if it starting eking into a second day? What if the loop snatched up a whole week? What if I never wrote another word because I couldn’t get out of the Loop, days disappearing in a haze of 140-character snippets?

Then I take a deep breath and remind myself that I control the Infinite Loop. With just one click (or maybe a few, depending on how many windows I’m rotating through), I can vanquish the Loop from my day and stick to being on the Internet a reasonable amount of time. I am only a slave to the Loop if I allow myself to be. The emails, the Facebook feed, the discussion board will all be there when I have time to get to it. And it’s not likely that I’ll miss anything really important.

Sometimes I just have to realize I don’t need to do everything. Stick to the things that reward me either personally or professionally and forget the rest (Twitter be damned).

I’d ask you what sucks up your precious time, but, umm, I’m getting little twitchy and have to go check my email…