Nothing kills productivity like distractions, so eliminate your distractions, focus on your tasks, and aim to complete your goals (even the small ones).

Productivity and how achieve peak productivity isn’t something that can just be laid out for someone, it’s more a matter of trail and error. Try new things, find what works for you, and most importantly stick with it. The goal of this newsletter is to give a couple of suggestions based on what I’ve used and done in order to give a head start on your path of finding what really works best for you.

Let’s dive into some ways I’ve been able to overcome distractions and become more focused when working.

Focus and Overcome Distractions

Focus and concentration are things you need to practice. As someone who struggled a long time with this it helps to create positive routines and rewarding focus and time spent doing a task.

Turn off notifications for a set period

Discord, Slack, Windows/Mac Notifications? Turn off notification and sounds while you’re working. On almost all operating systems there’s a Do Not Disturb mode where it’ll disable all of those notifications coming in from your applications and browser. You can also setup DND mode for set periods of time or to set automatically during certain points of the day, this might also be useful if you’re not wanting to be disturbed during a meeting or know you’ll be busy at a certain point in the day.

For me, notifications are such a huge distraction from my productivity but thankfully is the easiest to turn off.

Write all tasks down

Seems pretty simple and almost like a no-brainer but it’s good to be reminded about such an easy thing. Don’t make the mistake of keeping all your tasks in your head, rather put them in writing on paper or on a task tracking app so that way you keep yourself accountable.

Create a plan

Writing your tasks down is fine, but you need to have a plan on how you’ll accomplish your tasks. I find that Kanban boards are excellent for creating a list of priorities and tracking where they are in the process. Another way is to create a list and rank from 1st→nth the tasks in rank of time sensitivity.

Take Breaks

The Pomodoro Technique, for those that may not know, is the technique of taking breaks in 25 minutes in length. The truth is, we’re not productive if we grind for hours on end with no breaks, so instead it’s healthier to take periodic breaks and focus on what matters for that allotted time.

There are other techniques that work for other people (such as Flowtime), but the main point of this is to not stress out from grinding and take periodic breaks. If the method itself is causing stress then you should really seek something else that better suites you.

My Favorite Productivity Tools

Obsidian

Obsidian might seem like a simple note-taking app on the surface, but it’s honestly one of the most useful and varied applications I’ve used for productivity. While yes it’s centered around note-taking the overall use case for it can vary depending on the plugins you use for it. For example, I use the kanban plugin to create boards within my folders so I can track notes or chapters in a book I’m writing and be able to track the status. Digging even further I can use dataview to create custom tables and charts to display the data I’ve collected across all my notes.

I used to rely heavily on org-mode for all my needs, but since finding Obsidian I’ve used it for just about anything regarding note taking or task tracking.

APITable

Think spreadsheets but as a relational database that you can then use however you like and change on the fly. This application, much like Airtable, exists to consolidate data from different places and be able to make smart decisions based on said data. Many companies are using this to collaborate and share ideas quicker rather than having to create and share spreadsheets full of information or even having to build an app for something like collecting data.

Loop Habit Tracker

Loop Habit Tracker tracking app to keep myself on track even when I'm AFK. It’s a simple habit tracker with nothing fancy and allows for data export if I’d like to create graphs or data output outside of what the app features. So far it’s been great for keeping up with my reading, workouts, and taking any medication which overall has really helped with keeping my day more organized rather than sporadically doing these tasks and not tracking the time. I know this is a specific app, but I’d recommend looking into other habit trackers that suit your needs better or perhaps building your own.

The News

Twitter Threads

I’ve gathered a couple of useful twitter threads that I found interesting this past week. My goal with this section is to bring some helpful information to people and Twitter threads really are amazing in packing so much information into a small thread of tweets.

Rob Freund @RobertFreundLaw

Common question: "I have a small account. Will I really risk getting sued by reposting one photo?" A copyright lawsuit filed today answers that question in the affirmative. We're talking here about a picture of a shed posted to a Twitter account with less than 2,000 followers:

Brady Badour @notbradyy

I helped a client scale their info product from $7,500/mo to $87,000/mo WITH a TikTok community sales funnel Here are 3 important lessons I learned:

Rob Lennon 🗯 | AI Whisperer @thatroblennon

In two months, my course has done $142,863.17 in sales. 16 factors that combined into this lighting strike success:

MaterialFuture @MaterialFuture

🧵 Nothing kills productivity like distractions Eliminate your distractions, focus in on your tasks, and aim to complete your goals even the small ones

Final Notes

Thank you to all those out there that read the newsletters and threads I put out. My goal right now is to expand on my writing and share helpful and useful information with my followers.

Please take some time to check out my Twitter as it’s now where I post updates and threads on what’s out there. New music and art coming in March.

Thank you for reading MaterialFuture Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

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