6 Apps To Help Reduce Distractions
Reduce all those pesky interruptions
Whether it’s in small or large doses, we get distracted. Its our human nature. So, how do we go about solving procrastination.
In a small dose, it’s healthy.
Grabbing 5–10 minutes to zone-out is a perfect way to recharge the brain for your next piece of work, procrastination is another form of distraction all together, and can be most damaging as you begin proactive workflows.
Most of the time, this comes in the form of minor distractions like making the 5th coffee of the hour, calling a friend you spoke to only 2hrs ago, visiting the shops for a bag of sugar or the 43rd level of Candy Crush.
Procrastinators thrive having these simple distractions in arms reach.
Today, we’ll be sharing a few helpful resources to have in your arsenal when procrastination strikes, ideal for all those remote workers, freelancers and office workers looking to curb their ugly habit.
#01 — Forest — Remove the Phone
The ultimate distraction might be right under your nose.
Your beloved smartphone.
Taking control of your phone’s distractions might just be the way forward. Forest gamifies your productivity by offering a timer, if you manage to avoid your phone in the 20–40 minutes you set, you’ll be awarded a tree for your forest. Cute right!? If you manage to go out of the app, the tree dies. Sad, but a great way to keep tallying your no iPhone productivity streaks.
#02 — Coffitivity — Coffee Shop Sounds
Working from coffee shops normally mean a productivity streak for me.
Coffee shop noises = productivity for me
But how do you replicate those great background tones when you are working in a library, or at home? If you are like me, you’ll love this.
Coffitivity offers a way to get the noises of a coffee shop all inside a website with pre-recorded coffee shop tones. From lunchtime to morning recordings, it’s great for replicating those productive sounds. Alternatives include Brain.FM and Noisli, all are becoming increasingly popular due to the success of sound as you work.
#03 — Origin — Distraction-free work
Ah… The beauty of getting 1,000 words done in no time!
Distracting-free writing is a beautiful thing!
There’s plenty of i-Writer style solutions out there. The best are those that help you zone out and get the word count up! One that I discovered on Mac was Origin, which helps to let you zone out to focus on the work at hand! Best words to describe would be — that it’s like a typewriter, pushing you to conquer your word count and scribble what down what you need too. Perfect for those who get distracted by spelling checkers, details and more.
#04 — Escape — Log those distractions
Keeping track of where you go on your computer can be a great audit.
Auditing your websites, app usage can be monumental to your productivity
Ever thought of having a tracker to tally where you visit and how many times you get distracted?! Escape does that for you on Mac by tallying your interruptions. This data can be super valuable to your productivity by sharing the bad stuff and the good stuff about your web/app surfing across your day. Maybe you’ll crush some bad habits here! Give it a go!
#05 — Cold Turkey — Remove everything!
90% of our distractions are web-based.
Freezing access to websites and apps on your Windows/Mac devices.
Blocking out all of those distractions is so important.
#06 — Productivity Planner — offline planner
For thinking ahead, analogue tools are great!
An offline solution to prioritising your daily activities.
Getting offline sometimes is super valuable. With all of the technical ways to get offline above, making sure you stay offline is important. Planning ahead can be hard with all those web distractions and tools, so resources like the Productivity Planner might be your thing. Highlight your most important tasks (MITs) and start doing, then come back and review, easy peasy!
If you enjoyed these recommendations, feel free to recommend a few in the comments below for helping you to optimise your workflow. If you’d like a well-designed, distraction-free email service, try Newton free for 14-days.
