It’s been a long time since I’ve done a listicle piece like this but I’ve been thinking about these things a lot recently so here we go…

1. Standing desk

This was the one hack that inspired the rest of this issue - I’ve been using a riser on my desk for a while now, seeing as I’m quite tall and have to hunch down to access a laptop most of the time.

When my friend visited the other day, he suggested that I try adjusting the riser to be tall enough to work from whilst standing up. Although I didn’t at first think that this was going to work, seeing how slim and rickety the rise is when extended a long way, I’ve now put together a rudimentary standing desk setup that I can work from when I’m at home.

Now it’s not as good as having an actual standing desk, but at least I’m more mobile, and this in turn, as of the last few days, has seemingly suggested to me that I be more agile and rapid in my decision-making. Rather than sinking into one task for a long time, I get things done and move between tasks, taking less time in transition. And I mean things like working and then going and putting a loaf of bread on for tomorrow, not simply transitioning between online tasks.

Of course, this is something that I’ve only just started using so we’ll have to see how things pan out in the long-term, but right now it seems like a relatively low-effort way to modify the workspace for better work.

2. App/website blocking

I’ve never quite been able to figure out how I feel about app and website blocking but, as I mentioned in last week’s issue, it seems that I’m in a phase at the moment where I’m using it and am aware of its positive impact.

There are two frames of mind I have towards the use of social media in general. Because it distracts me a lot, they’re geared towards treating that and are as follows…

  1. One is to integrate it into my life without any strict restrictions and instead build a life that’s more entertaining than social media overuse, and fix the angle from which I approach using the platforms.
  2. The other is realising that our brains were not designed for such a tool and that sometimes, tight restrictions (modern solutions for modern problems) are going to do the best job at making me happy.

Right now, as a difficult period of work begins in my life, I’m leaning towards the second perspective, seeing as right now I seem to be scrolling Instagram to take my mind off things, or watching YouTube for the sake of consuming information, rather than doing things I know need to be done.

When this happens, it frustrates me. So I block and limit my access to apps and websites that have a track record of serving up nothing good to focus on whilst taking my attention away from the work I’m doing. This blocking is stricter in the mornings and evenings (time to focus and time to sleep respectively), and becomes a little less harsh in the day.

I still hold the belief that one day life’s going to become so good that I won’t use social as a distraction, more as a connection to people, but that doesn’t seem to be how it’s panning out right now.

The tools I use for this job are One Sec on my iPhone, and Cold Turkey Blocker on my Mac. Both do everything I need on their respective operating systems, importantly completely blocking access to certain apps, which I use to guardrail myself in doing the right things at the right times of the day.

So those are my two hottest low-effort productivity tweaks. Right now, as I mentioned, I’m going into what I anticipate to be one of the periods of my life where I’ll have to work the hardest. I’ve got the last semester of a degree, a business to maintain and plans for post-graduation to organise.

We’ll see how these hacks hold up to that. No doubt there’ll be some tweaks but I’m looking forward to the journey and will smile all the way through.

Talk soon,

— Theo

Last week’s issue (extended cut)…

Read the issue - 085 • Reducing distraction by doing what you intrinsically enjoy

A short video today, seeing as I wrote the issue from Poland whilst I was going full steam ahead doing things there rather than sitting down and working.

Pictures from last week…