Productivity Technology: Using Tech to Make the Most Out of Your Workday
“You may delay, but time will not.”
– Benjamin Franklin
I’ve written about how to use tricks of the mind to improve your productivity in a past post. Today I’ll focus on productivity technology to make the most of your time.
Specifically, we’ll hone in on three things:
Minimizing distractions
Making the computer work for you, and
Learning how your vision is impacted by screens and how that impacts your productivity.
Learning these strategies allows you to filter information and in the 21st century, there is a lot of it. In fact, if you compiled all of the data to have ever existed in the world, about 90% of it would have come in the last 2 years. The smartest people in the world are the ones who discern the signal from the noise. So, under each of these topics, I’ll provide simple and practical ways to use tech to help you do this.
The Productivity Technology Guide
Minimize Interruptions
“Hey, got a minute?” is the deadliest phrase to a productive person. In a study on the financial service industry, interruptions ate up about 6.2 hours a day or 31 hours a week. And the thing that impacts productivity more so than the interruption itself is the momentum loss due to the interruption. It takes an average of about 23 minutes to recover from an interruption at work.
But it’s not just other people bothering you, it’s you bothering you too. About 44% of the time you are interrupting yourself. Every time you check Twitter or send that text you are ruining your productivity momentum.
Do this:
Start by minimizing notifications in general. Do you really need to know about the status of that celebrity relationship or that warehouse fire 500 miles away? Turn off notifications that aren’t urgent, move mail to a non-Primary tab to avoid alerts, keep your phone on silent, and strategically use airplane mode when you could benefit from limited distractions.
If you can’t bear the thought of a certain person not calling you about a certain emergency then customize the do not disturb mode so that only that person can contact you. (Here’s how)
Or, if you’re really hooked, resist your urges by putting your phone in a locker box for a pre-set time period (1 minute to 99 hours).
Use Inbox Pause to schedule when you want to see emails coming in. The average person checks their email 15 times a day. Limit yours to 3: morning, noon, and evening.
Use Gmail’s schedule send to send those emails that you know will bounce back with a quick reply that you don’t want to address right now.
For one month straight, make a quick decision to unsubscribe from any promotional email you get. If you haven’t read it in a month, unsubscribe.
Install a site blocker like StayFocused or Freedom to prevent you from opening new sites and social media pages at work. With Freedom, you can preschedule sites, apps, and any internet access for specific times. You can sync it to different devices as well.
Put on headphones to drown out the noise and to let people know you don’t want to be interrupted (music optional).
What gets measured gets managed so track the time you spent on devices with the RescueTime app.
Finally, schedule times during the day to be reactive and separate times to be proactive.
Make Your Computer Work For You
The average worker spends 7 hours a day on a computer. If you expand that to yearly workdays that’s almost 2,000 hours. Making small changes to your computer can have incredible impacts on this time.
Do this:
Use a mouse and maximize the mouse speed under mouse settings. You wouldn't believe how much more efficient you can be with this tip. (And if you don’t already use a mouse, use one).
Learn and memorize keyboard shortcuts. The basics (copy, paste, switch windows) will give you the most bang for your buck but there are a ton you’re probably not using. Search for a list of shortcuts with the computer and programs (e.g. Google Docs, Excel, Windows) you use the most and print them out to put next to your desk. Learn one new one every day.
Turn on grayscale mode for your phone and computer as a deterrent for falling for the most colorful (or recognizable) apps, icons, and features.
Use a password manager like DashLane or LastPass to avoid that “Forget Password?” button. Here’s a list of the best password managers.
Find a note-taking app that you love. Odds are you’re either taking too many notes or too little. Find the sweet spot. My favorite is Evernote but I also use Google Keep to track notes, images, etc.
Use macros or Windows AutoHotkey. If you perform similar computer tasks each day, send emails with similar scripts, or perform monotonous functions that require more than one keystroke then you can save plenty of time using setting macros
Use dictation or voice-to-text.
Protect Your Eyes
Our eyes were made to constantly change their shape to focus at near and far distances (accomodation), smoothly move in many different directions (pursuits), frequently blink, and take in a variety of wavelengths. With screens, we maintain a central gaze at a short distance, processing only short waves (blue light), and blinking only 1-3 times a minute (normal is 15-20 times). This leads to an evolutionary mismatch causing blurriness, myopia, headaches, eye strain, fatigue, and dry eyes. Plus, it can potentially lead to permanent issues such as age-related macular degeneration and damaged retina.
Any one of these issues is going to affect your ability to efficiently perform on a daily basis but the accumulative effective has the potential to wreak havoc without you even realizing it. An astounding 50% of our brain is dedicated to visual processing so if you’re stressing this system then a higher level skill that encompasses productivity demands will suffer
Do this:
Use F.lux. This free software changes the color of your screen to coincide with the optimal amount of light your eyes should get from the sun based on the time of day (bluer light simulating the sun in the morning, red light in the evening). See the f.luxometer to pick your device (phone, laptop, tablet, etc.) to see that it pales in comparison to f.lux.
Use the 20-20-20 rule: Every 20 minutes look at least 20 feet away for 20 seconds. (To no surprise there’s an app for this.)
Get outside. This forces us to look further away and the exposure to brighter light reduces the chances of developing myopia by as much as 50%. Getting sun to your eyes the first thing in the morning also sets you up for wakefulness, improves mood, and improves your ability to fall asleep at night.
Make sure the monitor is 25 inches (about arm’s length) away from you.
Reduce screen brightness to the lowest level based on your personal retinal sensitivity.
Put your monitor near a window or, better yet, work outside. The brighter the surrounding area the less hard your eyes have to work.
Use a blue light blocking shield. If you use your cell phone and laptop later at night or for most of the day it might be worth buying a plastic cover that goes over top. There are options from Ocushiled for laptops (which doubles as an anti-glare and privacy shield) and phones (which double as a tempered glass screen protector). Both are for Apple products only.
Use blue light blockers. Use clear ones (which block a max of 50% of blue light) during the day and darker ones at night.
Best tinted ones: Essential Living or Spectra479
Best clear ones: Felix Grey
Look away. It’s okay to not look at your screen when you type. You were probably taught to look at it when you first learned to type but if you have stretches of typing long emails or documents then avoid looking at the screen. Not only is this better for your eye health but it allows your mind to do only one thing at once (that is, type instead of reading and typing).
Which productivity technology works best for you? Leave your tips in the comment section.
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