Procrastination is an addiction and it takes hard work, discipline, and many failures before you find what works best for you.
ADHD is killer for me if I do not manage it well... but I feel I finally have a system down that I have stuck to for 3 years with great success... too bad half my career was over before I finally got this figured out.
My laptop is for coding and design only. Only a few sites whitlisted in the browser and usually just for cut/pasting.
My Ipad is only for work/coding related consumption and always with me when I have my laptop ... reading docs, tutorials. No personal social media accounts, personal email, etc. I keep do not disturb on and block all notices.
And everything I could waste time on is on my phone with digital well-being on to limit it, or on my desktop where I never do work.
I plan every day with a sprint + bullet journal hybrid thing I have going. I pull from a kanban for the day, get stuff done hardest and most annoying first, retrospective at the end, migrate unfinished tasks to the next day.
Through the day I use a tomato timer. If I stray from what I should be doing I have trained myself to notice, write it down on my daily sheet, and get back to what I should be doing. Every long break I migrate those distractions to project sheets or my personal notebook. Every break I log what I did, plan the next timer, and step away and do something to reward myself... play with puppies, a quick game on my phone, whatever. It is ok if I run over the 5 minute break if I need to finish that reward, but not more than 10 minutes.
Always using paper for planning... opening an app, for me, is one step closer to a distraction. I use Rhoda reverse notebooks in dot-grid and a fountain pen. A page for every day, tiny sticky notes on a laminated kanban “today” board. I log every timer, every distraction, every accomplishment to hold myself accountable for misses and celebrate wins.
Your methods are similar to mine in that I use the Pomodoro Technique and Kanban boards. I don't use notebooks or a dot-grid paper, though. I did try a Hobonichi Techo at one point, but it felt less productive than what I'm doing now. Planning can also be procrastinating. So I try to keep it lean.
Really, my primary planning tool is kanban boards (buckets.co, specifically). I've got some project specific kanban boards for detailed tasks. But also a "General Tasks" kanban that tracks my overall task list. I do use a bit of bullet journal methodology in how I setup each column within that board in particular. The great thing about integrating bullet journaling techniques into my kanban boards is that it's updated as I go. I don't have to review anything at the end of the day. And my next workday is basically planned out for me already.
I also use Pomotroid for time management. I've tried other time management techniques, but the Pomodoro Method works well for me. It encourages me to keep very focused for short bursts of time (I use the standard 25 minute pomodoro), then I can take a break for a few minutes. I don't use the 5-minute breaks for anything related to work. I don't plan my next pomodoro interval. I don't look at email. I don't make phone calls. If it's resembles work in any way, I avoid it. When I hear that pleasant "ding", I drop whatever I'm doing-- even if I'm in the middle of writing a line of code. The breaks are "me" time and I guard them fiercely. When I hit the long break (again, the standard 15 minutes), I usually do something away from my office. I go take a walk, grab some coffee, go enjoy an unhurried restroom break (regularity is important!), etc. I don't track the number of pomodoros I've completed in a day, though. That's just more work. I don't need more work.
Last week, I tried going through my workdays without using pomodoros or my kanban boards. It was a hot mess. I won't be doing that again.
this way of limiting stuff in your computer is great man...
But it seem to need you to have a lot of computers. But this way of organizing your stuff make me think about this new OS (to come), it have been design to help users to stay productive, and it work in a similar way to what you described up there. An article on it:
Procrastination is an addiction and it takes hard work, discipline, and many failures before you find what works best for you.
ADHD is killer for me if I do not manage it well... but I feel I finally have a system down that I have stuck to for 3 years with great success... too bad half my career was over before I finally got this figured out.
My laptop is for coding and design only. Only a few sites whitlisted in the browser and usually just for cut/pasting.
My Ipad is only for work/coding related consumption and always with me when I have my laptop ... reading docs, tutorials. No personal social media accounts, personal email, etc. I keep do not disturb on and block all notices.
And everything I could waste time on is on my phone with digital well-being on to limit it, or on my desktop where I never do work.
I plan every day with a sprint + bullet journal hybrid thing I have going. I pull from a kanban for the day, get stuff done hardest and most annoying first, retrospective at the end, migrate unfinished tasks to the next day.
Through the day I use a tomato timer. If I stray from what I should be doing I have trained myself to notice, write it down on my daily sheet, and get back to what I should be doing. Every long break I migrate those distractions to project sheets or my personal notebook. Every break I log what I did, plan the next timer, and step away and do something to reward myself... play with puppies, a quick game on my phone, whatever. It is ok if I run over the 5 minute break if I need to finish that reward, but not more than 10 minutes.
Always using paper for planning... opening an app, for me, is one step closer to a distraction. I use Rhoda reverse notebooks in dot-grid and a fountain pen. A page for every day, tiny sticky notes on a laminated kanban “today” board. I log every timer, every distraction, every accomplishment to hold myself accountable for misses and celebrate wins.
Your methods are similar to mine in that I use the Pomodoro Technique and Kanban boards. I don't use notebooks or a dot-grid paper, though. I did try a Hobonichi Techo at one point, but it felt less productive than what I'm doing now. Planning can also be procrastinating. So I try to keep it lean.
Really, my primary planning tool is kanban boards (buckets.co, specifically). I've got some project specific kanban boards for detailed tasks. But also a "General Tasks" kanban that tracks my overall task list. I do use a bit of bullet journal methodology in how I setup each column within that board in particular. The great thing about integrating bullet journaling techniques into my kanban boards is that it's updated as I go. I don't have to review anything at the end of the day. And my next workday is basically planned out for me already.
I also use Pomotroid for time management. I've tried other time management techniques, but the Pomodoro Method works well for me. It encourages me to keep very focused for short bursts of time (I use the standard 25 minute pomodoro), then I can take a break for a few minutes. I don't use the 5-minute breaks for anything related to work. I don't plan my next pomodoro interval. I don't look at email. I don't make phone calls. If it's resembles work in any way, I avoid it. When I hear that pleasant "ding", I drop whatever I'm doing-- even if I'm in the middle of writing a line of code. The breaks are "me" time and I guard them fiercely. When I hit the long break (again, the standard 15 minutes), I usually do something away from my office. I go take a walk, grab some coffee, go enjoy an unhurried restroom break (regularity is important!), etc. I don't track the number of pomodoros I've completed in a day, though. That's just more work. I don't need more work.
Last week, I tried going through my workdays without using pomodoros or my kanban boards. It was a hot mess. I won't be doing that again.
this way of limiting stuff in your computer is great man...
But it seem to need you to have a lot of computers. But this way of organizing your stuff make me think about this new OS (to come), it have been design to help users to stay productive, and it work in a similar way to what you described up there. An article on it:
Introducing Mercury OS
Jason Yuan ・ 12 min read