Productivity - what works and can ‘systems’ help?

https://www.nirandfar.com/indistractable/

That's a great book. I use Pomodoro.

Pomodoro is suitably low-fi and easily done with a basic timer. There are apps and stuff but they're overkill, a cheap cooking timer gives you a clear countdown and is zero fuss.

Lots of strong coffee. Good sleep the night before. Or do what I do and convince yourself you'll be found out and sacked in a heartbeat if they found out you hadn't done what you said you would on time.

Strangely depending on your personality, having a bigger list of things to do can help you get through them as you know you have zero slack time to sit around and every minute counts.

I do have ADHD though so these may be horrible suggestions to someone who doesn't.

If I knew anything about productivity I wouldn't be replying to this when I should be writing a research proposal...

...but, I find motivation comes and goes pretty dramatically, so I milk the **** out of it while it's there, then just force myself the rest of the time by removing distractions. This usually means that I've got enough of a buffer from being over productive to absorb days when I'm a useless sack of shit. Leave phone out of reach, stick some instrumental music on (whatever you want, jazz, funk, electronica. I like Brian Eno, Aphex Twin, unspecified jazz for focus) take regular breaks doing something completely different that doesn't involve a screen (usually playing guitar).

I quite like ticking off tasks, it's satisfying, so mixing in easy, quick jobs with the longer ones might help maintain interest, rather than plugging away for hours at something that feels a long way off.

I used to try and get things done before opening my email to avoid becoming overstimulated and distracted.

I've been having the same quandary, not helped by wife internet diagnosing me with ADHD 🙄

I can deal with big chunks of work, and can get through little complicated tasks in 'spurts' of productivity like andeh describes.

I have genuinely wondered if there was a (legal) drug out there that might help improve focus and concentration, a modern equivalent to Ritalin I guess, but I've always been reluctant to muck about with my brain chemistry!

All I've learned is to protect myself by trying to fathom what's highest priority and just ignore everything else. Sadly modern working life seems to involve multiple, overlapping and/or conflicting priorities which spawn faster than you can knock them off, so I don't really know any more, am resorting to little handwritten lists again.

Good sleep helps-

For me a written to do list on a postit note so it's very - with some tasks broken down so the 'ticks' come round pretty quick.

Interesting thread.
The main thing for me was thinking of it all like physical object clutter, realising that those small dull jobs pile up and create mental clutter, the things that later bug you at 3am or you get a fine for not setting up that DD in time, etc. It's way better to JFDI.
On balance I get more out of getting things done and working through the list than the time saved by not doing it now, but other things have to make way for that time or focus. Like, less time on pointless social media.

Pomodoro can help for dull must-do short tasks that just need a bit of focus.

As Andeh says I use my focus when it's there and try to avoid forcing it when it's not. Lucky in working from home 75% of my time and can make that work - I have 2 periods a day when I can get stuck into things and a dead patch where I try to get other things done. Spotting that pattern can help.

Music - deep progressive techno/house at low volume or classical. Something that flows for 1-2hrs that can be background muzac.

A to-do list on paper - no point for me in apps or anything digital for this stuff. Daily pages where you add notes and clear before the day's end or refer back to the remainder the next day is foolproof for me.

Limited coffee - 2 great coffees very early am and that's it. I have a good focus spell early am, after maybe 9am coffee is counterproductive and messes with daily rhythm and sleep.

Magnesium supplements seemed to work for me after a period of getting bogged down with details and focus, minor stresses adding up etc. It somehow helped clear the mental fatigue I ended a day with and went with a period of better sleep (the sleep prob the cause of the reduced mental fatigue). Placebo or not idk but it was recommended as something to try and maybe there's something in it. I'd say my JFDI on the details of mundane life tasks has been better since.

Ditching or reducing scrollable social media helped, not that I used it much anyway. It's programmed to be a massive attention black hole and it's all made for the app company's benefit, not ours. I can access it via my personal laptop but my phone has IG and LinkedIn in subfolders so I have to go looking for it. Or log out every time so it makes getting back in a minor PITA, to prevent those 'quick looks'. Twitter got binned and I use FB for a couple of groups maybe 2x a month and that's it. Only website access on my work laptop (like now).

Smartphones are a curse. I heard a good podcast recently on happiness and productivity where the guest talked about getting into the habit of asking yourself why you're picking up your phone every time you reach for it. Most of the time we do it to fill a gap and it's rarely the best way to fill it. If you are looking for something specific, great. If not we're just reading other people's shitposting and attention-seeking a lot of the time. I found it good to start thinking of my time as more valuable than consuming the crap those sites serve up (so I come on a forum here instead? haha)

a well moderated forum is a country mile away from the usual endless FB-scrolldown-feed-of-fark-all

anyway

motivation is king

short slots of work, reward yourself with a 5 minute break, coffee, a post on STW, whatever.

basically, pomodoro. works for me as well as anything else has. I can't remain motivated for long stints.

Take a look at getting things done (GTD) From what I can see most other systems borrow and distill this.

It's quite cheesy and american but I find the principles useful. You need to start by writing down everything you have to do, this might take a while.

The key takeaways are:

1) Brain is for having ideas not storing them so write everything down in an inbox
2) Break everything down into next actions - This helps a lot. How often do you know you have a big job on but feel like you don't know where to start. It's the equivalent of breaking down a huge ride into manageable chunks. Instead of saying ride around the world from London which is totally vast the next step would be, ride from London to Dover then get on a ferry etc.
3) If you can do something in less than 2 minutes just do it.
4) Have a location for big tasks that you want to do but just not now. This is called someday/maybe, I have a little note of big cycling events that I stick things in when I hear about then which I can refer back to.
5) Review it weekly and see what progress you have made and what you can get rid of.

I also like to work towards having an empty inbox, don't use your email inbox as a to do list. Once you have read it decide if it needs an action, if it does write it down, if it doesn't delete it or file it. I am behind at the moment and just looked, 24 emails in my inbox and only 1 more than a working week old.

Not saying its perfect but any system is better than nothing

Good work habits are helpful.
GTD that @alansd1980 identifies is simple and effective. Sure, a bit dated but its simplicity and lack of BS makes it different from a lot of nonsense that has come since.

If you want to work and do not need to call folks on the phone for that and cannot resist picking it up and checking every now and then put it in a different room and turn it off.

One thing I have found useful is to, at the end of each day make a plan for the next day’s must do tasks - putting them in realistic time blocks in the schedule with the first action to take noted down. Once you can start a task it often flows from there.

I've been using the bullet journal method  https://bulletjournal.com/ for a few years now.  Paper based send to work better for me when trying to stay organised.  You can buy special notebooks like this  https://www.leuchtturm1917.co.uk/bullet-journal-edition-2.html if you really want but any notebook with a to grid layout will work.

Pomodoro and a will do list. Pause for 5 minutes at the start of the day, work out what the 3 most important things to do today are, and write them down on a post-it. Every time you find yourself not doing one of those tasks, take a 2 minute break and then come back and do 45 minutes on the first task on the list. Throw the post-it away at the end of the day.