I've recently re-discovered mine - brown noise.
Before the pandemic, I was working in an office that was quite noisy and it was hard for me to concentrate. But because music is distracting for me too, I started listening to brown noise.
After the pandemic hit and I started to work from home I kind of forgot about it. Since then, I've quit my job and started indie-hacking full-time, but I've been struggling a lot with procrastination.
And recently I remembered that I was listening to brown noise and started doing it again and my productivity improved tremendously. Somehow it just helps me to shut down distracting thoughts and I can get into the flow state immediately.
Bullet Journalling helps me a lot!
Great! I've never really got myself to find out how exactly bullet journaling works. Do you have a tip for a good tutorial?
If you are just starting with this, you can check this out:
https://melodywilding.medium.com/bullet-journaling-for-beginners-and-impatient-unartistic-people-like-me-6efd7ee97f0e
But nothing beats going through the source and picking the practice suggested there:
https://bulletjournal.com/pages/learn
Thanks for the tip! I'll check it out.
Android phone has a "digital wellbeing" mode. You can block notifications and apps.
It's wonderful.
I love it and use it almost throughout the day
Yup. Super handy. Use it all the time, and my screen goes black & white too at 10:30p.
Interesting, I'm an android user myself and never hear of it. Thanks for the tip!
It's scientifically-proven to work as it uses mental contrasting (ie. thinking about obstacles) before executing anything. It's like doing a premortem and identifying risks ahead of time, thus, being more proactive than reactive.
For me, the most important one is realizing that running a company is a marathon, and not a sprint, and while it is obvious, I find myself forgetting it from time to time.
While in marathon-mode, life is more enjoyable, you do not feel guilty when taking some time off, and you get more done overall as you dont burn out and have to take time off to recuperate.
Well said!
Mine is leave my phone in a different room, ideally a different level of the house.
Having said that, I listen to rain sounds on Spotify quite a lot!
I don't know if it's because I was already too old when smartphones became a thing, but I never really got to the "spending too much time on the phone" thing. I much prefer to look at things on the computer screen and use the phone only when I'm out - which is never nowadays. Or is it a problem of too many notifications?
Yeah, rain sounds are great too, but for me mainly for relaxation. For concentration, I need something very monotonous.
Mute all Whatsapp groups!
If it's urgent and important, they will ping you separately or call you!
go to settings --> Digital wellbeing --> manage notifications --> most frequent --> turn off notifications for non essential apps
I struggle as much as anybody with this still - but my most effective strategy is breaking down a project or task into the smallest pieces as possible. Literally writing/typing out a list of the most granular tasks for each item.
Then nothing seems very daunting, I know exactly what to do next, and that next action is so bite-sized and painless to do. Once I get moving, dominos start falling.
Great tip, thanks. I've been also trying this approach, but I often end up spending too much time planning and with too many tasks on the to-do list.
The 5 minutes make it of drop it.
When I don't want to do something, I try for 5 minutes and if I still don't want to do it, I drop it and do something else.
The most difficult is to begin. It's pretty rare I dropped something I began to do, and if I drop it, it means that I need to something else or simply relax.
I like this one too. Use it every day to make myself exercise.
My no.1 productivity hack is daily writing. I wrote daily about my indie hacker goals, to reflect on progress, brainstorm/plan ahead, daydream about future possibilities. Since starting to write daily for over 100+ days now, I got greater clarity, better emotional regulation (being solo founder is tough af), and better progress on goals overall compared to if I didn't write at all. I write with an online community (which I started) - feels like a mastermind group where you talk about your progress/plans and others can comment, advise, critique, nudge.
Interesting, thanks! I'm currently in the phase that I would like to start writing and get better at it, but I've been just postponing it so far.
For me it's a combination of:
Nice. How many pomodoros do you usually fit into one day?
Really depends on the day. I haven't been as consistent as usual as of late with our family schedule changes, but 15-20 is probably a fair average range.
Planning and treating time blocks as tasks themselves to have a positive reward loop going. I explain this methodology here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/simple-hack-to-always-feel-good-about-your-days-and-constantly-improve-your-productivity-31a13846eb
It works wonders for my schedule.
That's useful, thanks for sharing. Although for me personally, this kind of time blocking feels very restrictive. I like to pick my tasks based on what mood I'm currently in, sometimes I want to do creative stuff, sometimes more technical - so I prefer a more loosely defined to-do list.
The trick with planning that you make a conscious decision what's important and commit to doing it. Of course, things not always go as planned. So, i've added that second thing with a checkbox next to a time block. It's your reward and confirmation that you showed up and worked on what's important to you. I rarely plan further than a day or week, and if I'm not sure what to work on, just put a block "3 hours to work on product A". That checkbox really does wonders for me. I'm more happier, do more and with fewer distractions once I adopted that technique.
Turn off all notifications and distractions when doing deep work.
Hard to say just one, but I try to simply stay away from distractions. If they're not there, there's simply no temptation. It's kinda like "the pie in the fridge", when on a diet.
I tried many app / website blockers, but the main issue is that they feel like a punishment, rather than a positive motivation.
And that's actually why I built timeivy.com, to encourage myself and help others to focus (and take care of their well-beings), and get things done. Should be launching soon :)
Nice app, I really like the design. Just signed up.
Set my status on Slack to away, for almost every day, and only go to essential meetings - as much as I would love to partake in a meeting about meetings, I'd rather be in a meeting with my users who are having trouble figuring out how to do something. Not sure how this will go over on my next peer review, but at this stage of my career I figure it's worth the risk 😂
😄 yeah, constant slack notifications are the worst productivity killer. I'm glad I left my job so I don't have to deal with that anymore.
Batching tasks. For example,
Sit down and write the outlines for 4 blog posts at once instead of trying to write and publish only one blog post in one sitting.
Yeah, context switching is a total productivity killer for me too.
I've been trying WOOP: https://woopmylife.org/en/home
Thanks for the tip! I've never heard about WOOP. What do you like about it? How is it different from other frameworks?
My #1 productivity hack is listening to classical music. I always listen to classical music whenever I start working; it makes me more focused and productive as I do my workload for the day.
I also like classical music, but I find it either too dramatic or sad for times when I'm trying to focus. Do you have any specific artists that you recommend?
My #1 productivity "hack" is self-care. I prioritize a regular sleep schedule, drink enough water, not drink enough caffeine or alcohol, eat reasonably healthy, keep my desserts small but delicious, take walks, get sunshine, and exercise. I'd give myself a B for discipline, and even that works well. I'm happier, can think clearer, and I have more energy than periods of my life when I didn't prioritize my health.
Totally agree, no hack will help you to become more productive if you haven't taken care of the fundamentals such as a healthy lifestyle.
Productivity is difficult. Especially when you are doing something on your own. I sometimes use focusmate.com and it helps, but there are days when I can not even push myself to book the sessions.
That's because the behaviouristic approach focusmate utilizes may not work for you. If you struggle with procrastination for example.
So you have a video call with somebody, but you're not speaking to each other and each is working on their own thing? Sounds quite interesting. I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with somebody watching me while I work, but that's probably because I'm a huge introvert.
You spend 2 minutes at the beginning of the call on stating that you're going to focus and accomplish in the next 50 minutes. And at the end, you report on actual progress. This creates accountability. As for watching - not the case. People are busy doing their own stuff, plus you are working with other tabs usually.
Creating a list of 1-4 high priority tasks every day and keeping it in front of me throughout the day.
I like doing this too. I have a second screen where I have my workflowy open all day with the main tasks for today, tomorrow, week, etc... Having it in front of me all the time really helps me to stay focused.
Yep. The key is to keep it in sight at all times. With most digital solutions, it's too easy for to-do lists to just disappear.
Coffee ☕
NIce! I'm more of a tea person myself.
Good for you, my caffeine tolerance is too high :p
Very curious to hear what everyone says! My hack is my app Rocket - I built it after years of struggling with procrastination and distraction. My generation spends way too much time on our phones and it doesn't look like we're going to start using them any less. So Rocket converts the subconscious hooks that drive our phone use into attention towards getting work done. If this sounds interesting my website is fastasarocket.com
That's an interesting idea. I really like your introduction video.
Appreciate the feedback!
That brown noise is pretty nice. Reminds me a little of ocean waves.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btmjDyff6E8
Exactly!