I often hear people talking about distractions and thought I’d share what works for me.
Note-taking is quite important, because you need to set goals and achieve or edit them. My prefered way for a to-do-list is through a long Markdown document, in which I mark the date, and make bullet-points for things that I need to do/have done. I comment out things that are done, so that they turn gray inside Neovim. I heavily prefer this over analog note-taking, since I always tend to lose my notebooks.
I also use Markdown for other things like taking notes in various social situations (note to self; you should try a qwerty-phone sometime). I type way faster than I can write, and can also have multiple things open, such as PowerPoint slides, another document or a Librewolf window to quickly look up some more information on what was just said. This helps me a lot because it means that I don’t have to look it up later from my own unclear analog notes or put a relatively huge amount of time into drawing something that’ll be ugly anyways since it’s rushed.
I think I will greatly benefit from an e-ink tablet, but those are kind off expensive or pretty garbage or full of spyware or all of the above, so I’ll just wait untill I can get one for cheap/free that isn’t garbage.
Currently, my main mobile device is a Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact, I like it because:
It does have a few downsides:
I stay productive whilst still carrying around a smartphone by making it very boring. All things that can distract me are tucked away under a few taps, and the things that help me stay productive are a single button. For example: I can open my calendar with a single button, add a new event with another one, but opening YouTube, takes a few swipes and taps. By the time I’ve reached for my phone, unlocked it, opened YouTube, I often realise I should be doing something else instead. I use the Niagara Launcher, as it has a nice minimal aethetic, whilst still being a bit more functional that Unlauncher (most notably, the calendar feature and music player widget). I also have all notifications turned off, except for calls/calendar events/SMS messages, since those are usually urgent. I try to minimize screen time as much as possible.
I don’t think tablets are great devices for productivity, but since I have a Samsung Galaxy SM-T500 since it was free, and since I mainly use this tablet to control Spotify and some Home Assistant things. It’s basically always either on my desk or next to my bed, to control music or various smart devices. It is okay still on OneUI, but noticible slow and begging for a fresh install of LineageOS, but due to the Spotify problem, I can’t use LineageOS yet.
To be fair, it’s kind of hard to describe my smartwatch as a productivity tool, but I use a few, and in different ways than most people.
I almost only use Pebble’s, they’re old watches and the company is long gone, but the watches themselves stick kick. I have a Pebble Time Round that I always wear and a Pebble Steel that’s backup for when the Pebble Time Round dies. They’re are not really smart watches as we know them, and require a little introduction. They’re pretty chunky watches (except for the Pebble Time Round), and most have somewhere between 3 and 10 days of battery life (again, except for the Pebble Time Round). They have an E-paper display, which means that they’re either monochrome or have limited color support. They don’t distract, because they’re very limited. For example, I mostly use the one I wear on my wrist for:
Since those actions all only take a few clicks, and there’s no touchscreen, it does not distract me at all when I’m working. It only distract me, when I get notified of something or a calendar event is telling me to get up and do something else.
I also use an original Pebble as a pomodoro timer that’s on my desk, as there’s a pretty good app for that, and I had a stand still lying around.
I use my Framework laptop almost always. I only use my desktop whenever I need to do some tasks that are a little hard on the Radeon 760M and require a dedicated GPU.
I have the Framework laptop hooked upto a HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 that provides power to it, connects it to my 3 displays and peripherals.
I also almost always listen to music, except for when I need to focus hard. I usually listen to lofi music, but if I have to focus hard, I’ll put on some white noise and just go over to normal noise-cancelling after a while (like 45 minutes). This way, my head feels empty.
I used to use a Marantz receiver with a Raspberry Pi 4B 4GB as an audio source, but nowadays I have an iPod which I use for music. Way less distractions! I have speakers all around my room for when I don’t feel like using headphones or in-ears.
I often use my in-ears (AirPods Pro 2nd generation or CHU Moondrop II). If I watch a video or do something on my computer, I’ll use my Sony WH-CH700N, but since the noise cancelling of the Sony headphones is a bit dissapointing, I usually only use them at home.
If I find an album I really like and want to sit and listen to it, I’ll use my iPod and either a pair of Senheiser HD495s or the CHU Moondrop IIs. I do this away from any computational devices.
I find that chewing gum helps quite a lot when I need to focus, so I have a container of chewing gum on my desk.
I also try to keep my desk as clean as possible, put projects that I do in the breaks to the side immediately, or better, do them on another computer if virtual. Empty desk = empty thoughts, same goes for workspaces in my tiling compositor.
I have my monitor on a stand, since that makes everything a lot less cluttered, and makes the entire desk look more clean.
I’m not really a morning person, but I think it does help that you’re a lot more fresh and focussed in the morning. When I need to work in the evening, and I can’t focus, I’ll sleep for max. an hour and try again after. That usually works wonders.
I think the most important thing is that you minimize distractions and temptations, even if that means closing your chat app. In my opinion, fomo usually isn’t all that bad once you get used to it. It also really helps to do something with a goal, or even better, write it down to do it in your breaks.