A lot of this is probably obvious to most people. Also, nobody asked. Here goes anyway.

1. Take as many apps off your phone as you can. Use web versions of apps where you can. Fuck apps. I hate apps. Disable as many notifications as you can, while you’re at it. You don’t need to be notified of anything. You don’t need to be reachable 24/7. You need to do your work.

2. Use some kind of app to block things you know you want to use some of the time but that are distracting to you. Don’t rely on willpower. Willpower is for idiots. I like scrolling Bluesky (and previously, Twitter). I use an app called Freedom to block myself from accessing it for most of the day, except in the evenings.

3. Do the hard things as early in the day as you can. Failing that, do something other than the worst possible thing early in the day. For most people, the worst possible thing is picking up your phone and looking at social media. If you can’t do your work first thing in the morning, then meditate or drink your coffee or do anything other than calibrating your system to expect instant gratification and novelty.

4. Write everything down. You don’t have to become a full-time Getting Things Done maniac, but collecting any useful or actionable idea you have in a central place (a Notes file, to-do list software, a physical notebook) is critical. Get your ideas out of your head. Fuck remembering shit. Your brain is a portal to the sacred realm of ideas, not a file cabinet.

5. Break things into pieces. “Write a book” isn’t a task. Arguably, “write a chapter” isn’t even one, either. “Write 500 words of draft” is pretty good. Similarly, “get in shape” isn’t an achievable task. “Jump rope for five minutes” is. You finish things by starting them and you start them by breaking them into manageable chunks. Even if jumping rope for five minutes or writing 500 words doesn’t seem like much to do, if you were jumping rope for zero minutes or writing zero words beforehand then either one represents an incalculable improvement. That shit adds up, too.

6. Once a week, take some time to sort out your to-do list. Pick some goals for the next week. Organize your schedule. That list you’re keeping is only useful if you actually look at it on a regular basis and break big projects up into smaller tasks. Take stock of how far you’ve come every once in a while. You’ll probably be surprised.