Distraction Free Writing in WordPress

What is distraction free writing?

Well, distraction free writing is a feature of WordPress which is quite easily overlooked. Discovering it might make you blog more and it may improve your creativity. Less things going on in your browser page and just allowing you to, as the footer says “Just Write”.

To invoke the “Distraction Free Writing” mode, you click the little icon just below the “Visual and Text” options in your normal view as shown below.

One thing which would be really useful in this editor, is the ability to insert images, and then let your text flow around the image (i.e filling the blank space above). That would give really cool and powerful, maybe one day 🙂 . It also comes with some handy keyboard shortcodes as shown below

For example, Alt + Shift + c applies centering to whatever you select, although not all of these seem to work with a Mac OSX keyboard.

Why would you use it?

It just makes writing articles that bit nicer on the eyes, and because of this, you may end up deciding to write some more. Hopefully this short blog post on the new blog composing option (I say new, it may have been around years) of distraction free writing. Of course there’s a number of other practices you should follow when writing to really be distraction free, here’s a short list, what are your distractions that you try and avoid

1. The telephone, but your mobile down, unplug the landline, and focus on the article you’re drafting
2. Music, this is a mixed bag, some people need music in the background, others need silence. I find music is offputting.
3. Noisy children (either playing outside or in the house) nothing you can really do about that, perhaps drown out the noise with some white noise effects.
4. Focus, you may find your mind drifts, or an email pops into your email which takes your attention. Check emails every now and then (it’s not a live chat, it’s email) and focus on the task at hand

Do you have any more tips to make your blog writing more productive and distraction free?