1. Clean Out The Cupboards 📱
I use iOS Screen Time to block all social media, news, and yes, EMAIL, from my phone.
I also remove the ability to install new apps.
My wife set the code, so I don't have any easy way to get around it.
2. Add Guiderails 🚆
On my Mac, I have an automation that quits all apps each morning before I get to work and pulls up OmniFocus on the screen, so it's always the first thing I see when I open my computer and can't go down a rabbit trail.
3. Reduce Dopamine Hits 🥱
I use to spend my entire day in my inbox.
As I'd send emails, new ones would stream in constantly, and before I'd know it I'd spent 4-5 hours just responding to emails instead of moving important projects or individual work forward.
I setup
@Mailman_HQ, a Gmail plug-in
@mohitmamoria and I built, to only deliver email once in the morning and once in the early afternoon, and to automatically batch any emails from anyone I hadn't emailed with before at 7AM...
It lets in anything with "ASAP", "emergency", and "end of day" immediately. The rest can wait...
4. Use GTD ✅
David Allan's Getting Things Done productivity system is the only thing that has ever worked for me.
My tool of choice is
@OmniFocus, but you can use almost anything.
The idea in a nut shell: get *every* task out of your head.
Don't trust your brain.
Turn the raw tasks into projects and give them a context (Computer/Phone/Home/Out and About), then when you are in that context you can rip through your tasks...
My name is Andrew, and I'm a distractaholic 😂🪙
What has worked for you?