TJL #42: Block all distractions (Daily productivity #17)

Simple tips & trick to be more productive

Welcome back to Today Jan Learned (TJL) #42. In this newsletter I share tips and tricks to become more productive. I take the best self-help advice and turn it into actionable advice you can apply for immediate results.

Read today’s tip down below! 👇

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Daily Productivity Tip #17

Block all distractions.

To get productive, block all distractions. Multitasking doesn’t work and the costs of getting distracted are high, according to this study:

Mark et al. [20] found that it takes people on average around 23 minutes to resume an interrupted task. Iqbal and Horvitz studied how external interruptions cause information workers to attempt to leave their ongoing task at a stable state and then enter into a ‘chain of distraction’, comprised of a series of activities including checking email, instant messaging and browsing [10]. O’Conaill and Frohlich [26] showed that 64% of workplace interruptions are beneficial, but the recipient also does not resume work after 40% of the interruptions.

It takes us 23 minutes on average to get back on track after an interruption. Getting interrupted a couple of times can seriously impede your overall productivity.

That’s why I like to work with all distracting websites blocked. To block websites I use Freedom, but there are many other free alternatives. When I visit a blocked site this is what I see.

I do this because my fingers are faster than my brain. Often I catch myself mindlessly scrolling through HackerNews, Twitter, and Instagram before I even consciously realise it. That’s crazy!

Outsmart yourself, block all distractions.

Thank you for reading!

That was today’s issue of the Daily productivity Newsletter 🚀

Daily Productivity is a newsletter in which I share practical and effective tips on how to become more productive.

I collect these tips from the best self-help books, podcasts, videos, and turn them into immediately actionable tips for you to apply to your own life!

If you want to tag along for the journey, feel free to subscribe here!

As always, you can find me on my website janmeppe.com or on Twitter at @janmeppe.

Previous TJLs

Read my previous TJLs by following on the links down below:

• TJL #1: How to conduct a weekly review

• TJL #2: How to set up a StackNavigator in React-native

• TJL #3: Money is not wealth

• TJL #4: You get rich by owning things

• TJL #5: How to not be overwhelmed

• TJL #6: How to remember the difference between margin and padding

• TJL #7: According to Jeff Bezos there are two types of failure

• TJL #8: A stupid coding mistake

• TJL #9: Akrasia

• TJL #10: How to set goals like Google

• TJL #11: How to write great copy for your startup product

• TJL #12: How to change font in React

• TJL #13: Civilisation advances by extending the number of operations we can perform without thinking about them

• TJL #14: The Motivation-Skill Dichotomy

• TJL #15: No plan is also a plan

• TJL #16: How to understand difficult code

• TJL #17: How to write self-help books

• TJL #18: The power of precommitment

• TJL #19: Reflections on my first remote project (part 1)

• TJL #20: Reflections on my first remote project (part 2)

• TJL #21: Three small things

• TJL #22: Building Wedje (part 1)

• TJL #23: Building Wedje (part 2)

• TJL #24: Obscurity is good

• TJL #25: Zettelkasten method

• TJL #26: Use a checkbox (Daily Productivity #1)

• TJL #27: Be aware of the spotlight effect (Daily productivity #2)

• TJL #28: Start with the upper-left hand brick (Daily Productivity #3)

• TJL #29: It doesn’t matter where you take it from, what matters is where you take it to (Daily productivity #4)

• TJL #30: Start with writing your README (Daily productivity #5)

• TJL #31: Work with an outline (Daily productivity #6)

• TJL #32: Use active recall (Daily productivity #7)

• TJL #33: Use quadrants (Daily productivity #8)

• TJL #34: How to get started (Daily productivity #9)

• TJL #35: Use the Pomodoro technique (Daily productivity #10)

• TJL #36: How to handle your negative feelings (Daily productivity #11)

• TJL #37: Imagine the work, not the reward (Daily productivity #12)

• TJL #38: Separate your writing from editing (Daily productivity #13)

• TJL #39: Make it visual (Daily productivity #14)

• TJL #40: Make it pleasurable (Daily productivity #15)

• TJL #41: Don't be ashamed to ask for help (Daily productivity #16)