Nowadays, we have multiple personal devices and our data in on the cloud. We get multiple pings from notifications on all our devices. We are constantly being interrupted. I believe the best way to stay productive is to avoid redundancy at all cost – touch it once!
Time Blocks
Break your day into strict blocks. Assign specific tasks to be completed within these blocks – nothing else. You will not be interrupted from anything else. All have to wait until you come out of this time block.
Redundancy
We live in a world of “big data”. The worst thing you can do is to duplicate your work. Try to avoid making copies of your work. Before you make a copy, take a step back and ask yourself if this is necessary.
Phone Discipline
You may have heard this before – your phone can be your worst enemy. Manage the notifications and pings you get. These are specifically engineered to build habits so you spend more time on your phone and eventually buy crap. You know the app notifications you can do without, so just turn them off.
One example of this principle that I recently though about is WordPress. Before, I used to do my blogging from my laptop only. Requiring me to type on my computer. As I thought about writing about a topic, I had to make a note on my phone, email myself that note, log onto my laptop and then re-type it. This was redundant.
I now use the WordPress app, create graphics with the Canva app, and publish straight from my phone.