David Haye: Write stuff keeps me sane for fight night

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Too many distractions can be bad for any sportsman. Sometimes, however, the odd one or two can allow you to stay sane and slowly build focus in order to peak at the right time.

While in the process of preparing for a big fight, I'm always looking for some kind of distraction, something productive to do with my time away from training.

I'm not one of these guys that spends every waking moment inside the gym thinking of nothing but my opponent and what I'm going to do to him on fight night.

To be honest, that kind of intense mindset would eventually drive any person crazy. You can't train and prepare for a fight with non-stop focus and aggression.

When it is time to train, I switch on. The same goes for when the fight eventually swings around on Saturday night. When I get the call to head to the arena, my game face will appear and I'll be focused only on crushing John Ruiz.

My main source of necessary distraction for this next fight is a magazine project I've been working on. I'm always on the lookout for something to undertake before a fight and this was the latest idea to enter my head during training camp.

Originally I set out to make a beefed-up fight programme, something that my fans could take home from the MEN Arena in Manchester and feel proud to own.

Instead, I've produced the Hayemaker Magazine. It took about six weeks to put together and it was probably the most enjoyable project I've worked on so far.

I interviewed England football captain Rio Ferdinand, my athletics hero and Olympic champion Linford Christie, as well as rugby star Danny Cipriani and fellow world champion boxer Amir Khan.

It was strange for me to be conducting the interviews. Usually I'm the one answering the questions. But I thoroughly enjoyed it and I couldn't be happier with the finished project.

So now you know what I've been doing with my time in between training sessions. When I haven't been thinking about re-arranging John Ruiz's face, I've been arranging my own magazine.

The fight at Manchester's MEN Arena will be screened live and exclusively on Sky Box Office