Stay offline until noon (or later)
Stay offline until noon — or later.
The idea is simple : avoid distraction and gain focus.
People are distracted because they make it easy.
Put more steps between you and distraction.
Set your phone in flight mode and hide it at the top of a furniture, in the room you use the less.
I do that with my modem too when I shut down at 8pm. Everyday. And I don’t have mobile Internet on my phone. I can only go online via Wi-Fi.
If that’s not enough, make it even more difficult : set a long and complicated Wi-Fi password and forget the network when you shut down in the evening. The only way to go online will be to get that piece of paper with the password, and enter the 26 characters impossible to remember (alphabet can’t be your password).
By the way, you’ll be soon thankful that you got in the habit of shutting down every evening about 2 hours before going to bed. All screens off, all lights too except a warm one in the bedroom.
We first think that going online to check e-mails and watching last night game’s review won’t affect our focus, and that we only loose five minutes. The reality is : we‘re jumping from one link to the other, getting caught in our easy stimulus addiction. 30 minutes passed. We’re less likely to regain focus for our less stimulating task for work. Finishing a song should be fun, but the reward won’t come as quickly as watching a video on YouTube or checking e-mails.
Three hours of uninterrupted work — including short breaks without screens —are much more effective and enjoyable than three hours with interruptions cumulated over a day.
I make the most important things in the morning : creating new music and finishing tracks.
They are not only the most important things, they’re also the things requiring the most focus.
We creators and thinkers, more than anything we need long periods of solitude if we want to save what is essential in us. And to experience true solitude we must stay offline.
