I’m really bad at staying focused on my work. Like…REALLY bad.
I have a bad habit of popping into my email to see what’s up. And I love dropping everything to check Slack.
I’m pretty sure this issue isn’t unique to me.
I’ve spent years trying different ways to help myself gain focus. The most effective has been—and I know this feels obvious—to close my email and Slack.
That always works for a while (as in a few days), but then I inevitably find my email back open all day.
Since closing email worked, but also didn’t because I kept leaving it open, I tried a different means to the same end. I found a tool that keeps all my inboxes, slack channels, and other tools together in one place.
It’s called Shift. And it’s a desktop app that was built to keep all your work together. But for me, it lets me separate my work from the things that distract me from said work. It keeps all my distractions in one nice, neat place.
With all my inboxes, Slack channels, and Skype, and more in Shift, I have one window. And, importantly, I have notifications turned off. When I start on a task, I close Shift and all my distractions go away with it.
If you’re as “ooo, squirrel” as me with notifications, check out Shift. It has a ton of integrations, including the most popular inbox, chat, and productivity tools.
When I first started using Shift, I added my Asana dashboard and daily checklist. But I quickly realized that I kept opening Shift to check my next task. So I adapted and moved my Asana and checklist back into Chrome so I can access it without being tempted by email.
This is another one of those small improvements I’ve made to help make myself more productive and make the most of my time.
Affiliate disclosure: Links to Shift are affiliate links, and if you sign up, I may get a small commission at no additional cost to you.