How to remove distractions from Google docs.

Hello again!

I don’t know about you, but I’m very easily distracted, especially when I’m editing. There are so many other things I could be doing, all of them more interesting than beating my head against a manuscript for hours at a time. I use Google docs to write, because it’s convenient, autosaves, and my manuscripts are safely saved to my Google account, so I can’t possibly lose them. But when I’m writing, I struggle to ignore the sweet siren call of the + sign, calling me to doomscroll. 

How would you react if I told you, you can remove the convenience of the many distractions you encounter when you use an online word processor (on a computer)? How would you react if I told you, it was really quite easy? 

(I’m demonstrating in Chrome, but Edge and Firefox have similar settings, located in basically the same place.)

Step 1. Move your cursor to the top right corner, to the three vertically stacked dots.

Step 2. Locate the full screen button.

Step 3. Enjoy.

This will remove the tempting + sign, and the clock, because I don’t know about you, but when I’m distracted, I’ll check the time every three minutes. If you would like your screen a little cleaner, then you can further remove distractions. (You may want to zoom your screen in first.) 

(Pre steps for zooming in your screen)

Find zoom setting, a bar that (most likely) says 100%

Increases until you're comfortable with the zoom, (I like it at 125%)

Step 1. Click on the View button at the top of your Google docs toolbar.

Step 2. Find the full screen button (at the bottom of the tools).

Step 3. Enjoy your distraction-free writing screen.
I hope this little tutorial proved helpful for you! What do you do to remove tempting distractions when you’re writing?

Have a great day, and keep writing!