I’ve got a persistent computer problem; my computer will, at random intervals, lose focus on the window in which I’m working. If I’m typing, whatever I type stops being recorded. If I’m playing a game, the game stops responding to my input until I’ve clicked inside the game’s window again (yes, this gets weird with fullscreen). This has weird side effects! I’ve had my computer put the display to sleep while I was watching a video, because it lost focus on the video player and then didn’t receive any input for five minutes.

This would be merely annoying, if it weren’t for that typing problem. Having my typing interrupted because my computer lost focus on my word processor is aggravating. It’s awful.

It’s like playing music only to find that your instrument isn’t in your hands anymore. Instead, your instrument is hanging in midair, right there in front of you, but you have to reach forward and grab it again and settle back in to what you were playing. Your music only comes out in fits and starts. It is nearly impossible to relax into a flow.

If, like me, you sometimes enjoy closing your eyes and envisioning a scene and just typing until you figure out where everything is going… tough luck.

I have struggled with this. I’ve hunted through forums for similar experiences. I’ve searched for the culprits they identified, or the methods they used to find their culprits. I’ve tried setting up programming shells and running code that I found online to log whatever program keeps stealing focus. I’ve done everything… except painstakingly tagging all the documents that I want to save, copying them onto an external drive, and then reformatting my machine and starting over.

Why?

It’s a stupid reason, really: it takes time and effort that I’d rather spend writing. Or which I’d rather spend doing anything else. Yet the longer I put this off, the more time I lose and the more frustrated I become. It’s been a problem for an embarrassingly long time at this point.

I’m going to give myself a gift this holiday season. I’ll finally do the prep work necessary for a factory reset on this machine. Then, I’ll set myself up with some hot beverage(s) and a good book, and I’ll let all the necessary file transfers grind along until I can wipe this thing clean and start fresh.

Or, more likely, I’ll start this and then be busy taking care of the baby or doing house work. At least this will be done.