Cutting out distractions
On his new blog Write To Done, Leo Babauta talks about how to write without distractions. I wanted to look at a couple of his points from the FOSS/Linux/Ubuntu perspective.
Cleaning House
I’m trying to be more organised (and by extension more productive). As well as the obvious things like task management (I’m not yet back into full GTD mode, but I’m working toward it), I’m also trying to be tidier.
This is manifesting itself in two ways. Firstly my office is a dumping ground for anything and everything, and apart from the path from the door to my chair, and my immediate work area you cannot see the floor or any flat surface. I’ve got a huge amount to sort, but I’m taking those steps.
Secondly I’m looking to eliminate online ‘clutter’. The other day I dropped my Jaiku account as it was worthless to me. Pownce may be next. Inspired by advice from Web Worker Daily I made an effort to reduce my number of inboxes. If it doesn’t fit into e-mail, IM, RSS or Facebook I’m not paying attention to it anymore. Twitter fits into this as I can get updates through RSS, and thanks to their new functionality I’m only notified about certain peoples ‘tweets’ through IM. Twitter also fits nicely into Facebook.
Having increased my RSS load, this9123.entry prompted me to reduce. It made me realise that of my hundreds of unread feeds, and significant proportion were things like Slashdot, Lifehacker and a bunch of gaming sites from the people at Joystiq. More often than not, I’d end up marking them all as read without looking at them. Well no more! I’ve not scrapped every feed that has ‘staff’, but I’ve removed quite a few of them.
Which brings me to a final request. Dear lazyweb, who’s feed should I be watching that I’m not already?
Switching off
I’ve been working from home for a few years now, and whilst it works for me it’s not for everyone. The obstacle most people have trouble overcoming is how to make sure your personal and professional life do not get too confused. There is lots of advice out there of which the majority is common sense (like having a separate work area) to personal preference (like wearing a tie, even if you are not going to see anyone), but some of it is getting harder to implement in these days of ubiquitous WiFi and mobile technology.
LifeHack have just linked to an article about switching off in the evening. Turn off your computer (and phone) and go do something else. Sounds good in principle, but what – if you are really honest – if you don’t want to?
My solution is to dual-boot: Microsoft Windows for work (a necessary evil, and Linux for play. An old fashioned idea syou might think, but the secret sauce is the improved power management available in Linux these days. When I’ve finished my day job (or need to change gears at say lunchtime) I tell my Thinkpad to hibernate, then turn the machine back on and resume my Linux session I hibernated earlier.
It works for me, and it may work for you to.
look good