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by milesjag 1225 days ago
Some of the tools which have helped me rediscover my focus and discipline:

* Use the CLI for everything - reduce the amount of time you have a browser open

* An egg timer - use this every time a tedious task needs completing

* A dumb phone - small and minimal functionality, easy to forget about

* A watch - stop using your phone for checking the time

* Cook your own food - excellent use of time

* Exercise - no headphones, a gym provides background music and enough human contact to keep boredom at bay

* Long-form media - books, films, music

* Return to things you know you like - 'it is better to know one book intimately than to have read one hundred'

2 comments

> A dumb phone - small and minimal functionality, easy to forget about

This requires more diligence, but can't you create the experience you want on a smart phone (no social media, disable all notifications, etc.) without giving up utilities that provide actual value, such as GPS / navigation?

> Exercise - no headphones, a gym provides background music and enough human contact to keep boredom at bay

Interesting. I feel like I am more distracted and unfocused when I listen to the gym's music (sometimes their music just doesn't match the intensity of the workout) or when I socialize between workouts.

The practical advantages of tiny dumb phones outweigh the technical disadvantages. There are 2 kinds of trip:

A - I travel across the city to visit friends/family/work or go somewhere far but familiar.

B - I travel across the country or for an extended period of time.

A dumb phone will cover A and a smart phone will cover B. The switching of sims is a non-issue as situation A covers almost all of the time.

For exercise, I just found that eliminating the concern of what to listen to was the real gain

GPS can be in not so malicious environment, I'm talking about separate GPS device instead of addictionful phone with no buttons, so-called smart but maybe not for end user's brain and free time.
> Use the CLI for everything

Interesting, can you explain what this looks like in practice?

Usually a black screen with a bunch of mostly white letters :)

Seriously though, I do this a lot too. All my instant messaging comes though a text interface, most of my note taking and other work. I use the browser a lot still because it's sadly unavoidable.

If I really need to focus I even use my old VT520 CRT terminal. The soft amber glow really helps to focus <3

Yeah it might sound ridiculous but I do this too…

I wrapped the GPT-3 API in a stupid little CLI the other day, just to poke a davinci w/o having to go the browser. I like it.

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