Best Hacks For Distraction-Free Writing With Rachel Thompson

Welcome to the Marketing Growth Podcast. I’m your host, Shane Barker. I’ve been discussing book marketing with Rachel Thompson the last two episodes. This time around, I really want some pointers on keeping my focus while writing a book. I know I’ve struggled with it, and I want to know what her secret formula is for staying focused.

Another thing I want to touch on too, because you know, I’ve been talking about putting out a book since I was like two years old or something—not really—but I feel like it’s been that long because I just haven’t done it. So you’re a mother, you have two cats, you’ve got like 19 businesses—not really, you have like three—but it feels like it, right?

I mean, how do you, and I know a lot of your business is writing, but how do you find the time to do the writing? I know it comes naturally to you because you’ve been doing it for so long, but how do you allocate that? Because that’s the hardest thing for me. I pretty much have ADHD, and I have like 500 screens and 10,000 tabs open. I’m like, “Hey Shane, this week just spend half an hour and work on your book.” And I sit down and think, I gotta cut my toenails, mow the lawn, try that new craft beer, hang out with my wife, walk the dogs, play baseball with my son. So here I am, thinking of everything else other than sitting down and trying to focus. The keyword is probably focus.

How do you do that? Do you have a system? Do you close the blinds, turn off electronics, go to bed and start writing so nobody can find you? What’s your routine?

Just do it. Just get it done. I mean, that makes sense. It’s funny, I was going to ask you because you—I’m going to say you’re a little crazy, and I mean that in the nicest way possible, like me. There’s always more projects and more of this.

I talk to people, and they’re like, “What are you doing?” I tell them, and even my friends don’t really know what I do. Like, they’ll say, “Hey, what does Shane do?” and people are like, “He does a lot, but…” I’d actually love to challenge my friends—give you $1,000 if you can tell me what Shane does that takes up 80% of his time.

Some will say, “I see him internationally speaking,” or, “He writes a blog—I think?” or, “He does real estate but not sure how much.” Even my wife—she said something the other day, and I was like, “You don’t follow anything I do, really.” And she said, “Not really. I mean, I kind of know what you’re doing.”

She mentioned something I hadn’t done in three weeks. I was like, “How do you not know what I’m doing every minute of the day? Are you not on Twitter? I just updated the whole world.” And she’s like, “No, I don’t follow you on Twitter. I see you in real life. The last thing I need is more exposure to you.” I mean, come on.

So with all this being said, what future projects are you working on? You mentioned Broken People is the third and final book—when is that coming out?

So, for anyone hearing this, just to give some context—this recording happened a little earlier, but we’re almost fully quarantined. I mean, we’re here in California, and this is, you know, with the Coronavirus. Anybody over 65 can’t come out, shouldn’t come out, will not be able to come out. And now we’re kind of in a situation where they’ve closed down restaurants and bars and all that fun stuff.

Do you think this is going to be a good time to get more work done? Or is it going to be a situation where the kids are going to be home, and the cats are going to be—well, not really losing their minds, because they’re already living it up with treats and catnip and all the other fun stuff? Is this going to be a good time for you to be able to knock out some projects? What are you seeing in the future?

It’s easy to get sucked in, for sure. I mean, there’s just so much information, and it’s like, especially because now you have kind of an isolated time where you’re inside the house, you’re like, “Oh, let me be online a little bit more. Let me look up these crazy websites. Let me click on this link bait and see what they’re saying.” And, oh, that sounds crazy—because it is, and it’s probably not true. But you got to be careful of that.

So let’s jump in at the end of this podcast here. This has been nothing but an awesome session once again. What would be, like, the best piece of advice that you can give somebody? Like, let’s just say it’s life—like, is there anything someone said to you a long time ago, whether it helped you with what you dealt with in your past or current situations, or how to write a book or whatever—like, do you have any good piece of advice? Like, “My uncle told me this when I was eight years old and it’s been my mantra” or something like that. Do you have anything like that?

Yeah, I do. Absolutely. Now it’s, like, CVS. Yeah.

Well, most people are their own—their own road bump is usually themselves, right? And I realized that in my business a while ago—years ago—everything kept coming back to me for approval, and this, that, the other. And now all of a sudden, I’m the person that’s stopping everything, which is like a nightmare, right?

So I think having an assistant or investing in yourself, like you said—hey, you started off at $100 a month just for somebody to take on a weekly task, to take on stuff that, you know, the problem is, our mind only has so much RAM. And there’s 500 things you need to get done, and if you can take off 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 or 100 of those things, have somebody else doing it, then it keeps the machine going, right?

You don’t want to be—you can be your own worst enemy sometimes. So I think everybody gets to that point once you get enough business. Or, once again, invest in yourself. Spend that money. Like, it’s money you really should spend, because you could be saving it, sure, but at the end of the day, if you’re driving yourself crazy or you’re not launching, that’s a huge issue, right?

You’re not going to make any money if you don’t launch. So what do you need to do to make sure that bottleneck isn’t happening?

Okay, last two questions. I’ve got one more that I really want to ask—and I’m excited to hear your answer. If you could have dinner with three people, dead or alive, who would it be and why?

You will. I mean, you’re already there. Like, I think she’s already pretty much at your table.

And you’ve got one more seat here. It’s going to be a good dinner party, I can tell.

For sure. She’s awesome. She’s definitely been on the forefront of making sure that there’s no longer a silent voice. So that’s awesome. Yeah.

Rachel Thompson, this was awesome. I knew it was going to be a good interview. I’m excited. I didn’t even know you were in my hometown—that’s super awesome. I’ll probably see you everywhere now. Like, before we probably walked past each other ten times and didn’t even know.

But yeah, if anybody needs to get in contact with you, how can they do that? Like, go ahead and give us a little spiel on what you got going on.

And where can they find your books?

I’m sure you learned a thing or two about tuning out distractions around you while writing. To those listening out there, I promise to invite other amazing marketers to the show next week. Stay tuned to Shane Barker’s Marketing Growth podcast.

Before we draw the curtains, I also want to let you know you can reach out to me and my team for any assistance regarding SEO, CRO, influencer marketing, PR, and social media marketing. You can contact me via my website: shanebarker.com. That’s S-H-A-N-E B-A-R-K-E-R dot com.