The internet is a wild and wonderful place. It’s also a huge distraction. I could easily spend hours a day reading and researching and following rabbit trails. However, I have work to do and I need to focus. I have recently discovered a productivity hack that is a huge help for me in achieving that focus.
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Forest: A Productivity Hack
I was listening to one of my favorite podcasts the other day, The Productive Woman, and Laura McClellan (podcast host) was interviewing Maria Dismondy . One of the questions she usually asks during interviews is what tools they use to stay productive. Maria Dismondy said she uses the Forest app and as she described it I knew this was right up my alley.
Forest app:
“Have you ever been addicted to your phone and just cannot put it down? Forest provides an interesting solution to beat your phone addiction. You can plant a seed in Forest. In the following time, this seed will gradually grow into a tree. However, if you cannot resist the temptation and leave this app to check Facebook or play a game, your tree will wither away. With this interesting mechanism, the sense of achievement and responsibility will drive our users to stay away from their phone with no pain.”
Features:
• A self-motivated and interesting way to help you beat phone addiction
• Stay focused and get more things done
• Turn your focused time into a lovely forest
• Manage your own tags and view the detailed statistics about how you allocate your time
• Compete with friends and users around the world
• Earn reward and unlock more tree species
• Track your focused time in Health App
• Plant real trees on the Earth and protect our environment
You may not know this about me but I consider myself a “tree hugger”. In fact, this is a picture of my personalized license plate:
Please ignore the tree fluff all over the car. It rained this morning!
The idea that by staying focused I can actually help plant real trees is highly motivating to me. Here’s how it works:
You select the amount of time you want to focus on a task (or simply avoid using your phone) and then get busy. If you try to use your phone for any other purpose you get a reminder but if you persist, your growing tree shrivels up and dies. Very simple.
So far I’ve just been using it while working but I want to begin using it during leisure times to help break the habit of taking “just a peek” at Facebook or email or any number of other phone apps. I’m trying to make more time for reading these days – real books, not just articles on my phone – and I think the Forest app will be helpful for that, as well.
What about you? Does this sound like something that would motivate you? Do you have other methods that help keep you focused? Or is your phone (or computer) not really a distraction for you? If that’s the case, you are my hero and perhaps you’ll teach me your ways, oh wise one. Leave me a comment and we’ll discuss.
Scroll down for a few productivity articles and books.
Articles:
This 90-Minute Morning Routine Will Make Your Workday More Productive
14 surprising morning routines of entrepreneurs and creatives
How to be Totally Present and Productive
Productivity books:
Sounds like a really cool app. Of course, it probably doesn’t work with voiceover… A lot of them don’t.
When it comes to my phone, it doesn’t matter though, since my phone’s not really a problem for me. I think it’s mainly because using touch screen technology is hard work for me, but I generally just pop on to Twitter and Facebook for a few moments in the morning to check – and potentially deal with – any direct notifications or messages, and then spend a bit longer on it in the evening after dinner (assuming I’m not too tired to be bothered). I do have some games on my phone, but the main time I bother with those is if I’m using them to amuse myself while waiting for someone or something.
My computer is another matter. Resisting Twitter and Facebook on the computer is pretty easy, since JAWS (my computer’s screen reader) doesn’t play well with them, so I tend to give up really quickly, and the main social media activity you’ll see from me when I’m on the computer – in fact, in general – is from my sharing things via other sites. However, I could get lost for hours looking up random things on the internet, and I’m totally addicted to the accessable Scrabble and Solitaire games I have on the PC. I’ve not been doing so bad with keeping my focus on getting things done that I need to lately, but I’m not entirely sure how much of that is just because I know it’s only a matter of time before another workman is here and I won’t be able to do anything, and how much is me getting better at not letting myself do other things. Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure it’s more the former.
We all have our challenges regarding focus, don’t we? I think you hit on something important when you mention that you resist Facebook and Twitter because they are difficult for you to use. Some time ago I removed the Facebook app from my phone for awhile which made it more difficult for me to access. I think I may do that again. I have the Pages and Groups apps so I can still deal with the pages and groups I administer. It would just make it less convenient to mindlessly scroll the newsfeed.
Yes, I think making it more difficult helps you resist the temptation. It’s not fool-proof, but it certainly helps.