This relates to writing, so the subject could possibly go in the Fanfic section, but I figure I'm better safe than sorry putting it here.

I live with my girlfriend. It's a comfortable arrangement. Most of the time, we have no problems - when we do, we talk them out like adults. We intend to be in this particular relationship for the long haul and we're looking forward to spending the rest of our lives together.

But there's a particular aspect of our relationship I don't much care for. Whenever she's in the house, I find myself curiously unable to focus on my writing. It might be coincidence, but as long as she's present in the house, I feel like I can't concentrate the way I used to be able to.

It could also be because since I began writing, my life has shifted focus in several ways. I've been writing stories since I was in my single digits, when all I had to do was worry about homework and chores. The same still applied when I was writing Pokémon fanfiction - though there were many times I blew off homework and chores because a plot bunny was nibbling my ankle. But now that I'm a working-class adult, I'm worrying mostly about items relating to financial security while at the same time taking care of every single chore and piece of "homework".

This is not to say I don't have time to write; I try to set aside a couple hours each day for it. But when I sit down at the computer, waiting for the words to flow out onto the page, it simply doesn't want to come out. The ideas are all swirling around in my head but my fingers seem to lock up. They simply stay in place, the screen stays blank, and the ideas ultimately stay in my noggin.

This is where it gets really sticky for me. Our desks and computers co-exist in the same room. When my girlfriend sees that my fingers aren't flying over my keyboard in a state of fervent scribing ecstasy, she'll determine that I'm not doing anything at all and she'll grab my attention with something interesting she's found in a book or on the Internet, some random observation she's made, or something funny someone sent her. This distraction makes it incredibly difficult for me to turn my attention back to my writing, where I wanted it to be, and the concepts I'd been trying to cultivate all day vanish from their carefully constructed cage. My computer is a laptop, so you would think moving to another room might solve the problem - it doesn't. She simply calls across the house to me. I can't lock myself in a room because she demands to know why I won't let her in. My only refuge is a pair of earbuds jammed into my ear canals, dialed up to full volume, so that I literally can hear nothing else. I have discussed this matter with her at length, and she has promised she'll try to be more cognizant of my need for solitary (perhaps even monomaniacal) focus, but there are many times it seems as though the conversation never took place.

In spite of this, I challenged myself last year to write at least one page every 24 hours. This goal was achieved (just barely), and now I feel like I should have put forward a similar challenge to myself this year.

All this is the long way around to asking my fellow writers and hobbyists - what do you do when you feel like you can't concentrate? What helps you focus on a particular objective?