* remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps.
* condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too.
* (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e-ink (android) tablet.
>I’m looking for some apps that people use and get genuine value out of. Can I learn something while I’m bored on the couch?
For me it's not about finding some app that helps me with this; I already have a backlog (bookmarks, pdf, tutorials) of stuff I genuinely want to consume yet I end up always scouring for new content, even with the gigantic backlog.
There's rarely any lack of quantity in content these days, quality maybe, but that's the fallacy that lead us to look for more/newer content rather than consuming the ones we've already identified.
So having a dedicated device for "consuming backlog" and minimizing adding more stuff to it have been a good change.
+1 to this. Getting a reMarkable has improved my “Actually read interesting papers” metric by infinite%. I went from bookmark and forget to reading at least 1 paper per week on average.
Turns out published academic papers, even the bad ones, are infinitely better than even the most insightful twitter threads.
Years ago I replaced podcasts with audiobooks for long runs. Podcasts started feeling too short. That’s been a huge improvement as well.
This week I stopped listening to podcasts on my way to the gym. That’s 20 minutes of thinking time per day. Fantastic so far. I feel a lot more relaxed.
It syncs over wifi. There’s a windows/mac/ios app that you can drop files into and they show up on your reMarkable.
There’s even a chrome extension that lets you click a button and the page shows up on the tablet in epub form (which unfortunately doesn’t do images). You have to print-to-pdf then dump into the app to get a webpage with images onto the tablet. That part’s kind of annoying, but many articles work just fine as epub.
> * remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps.
Absolutely this. Most chat and social apps have no notifications for me. and if any other app sends me notifications that aren't really relevant to me as an individual, then it gets muted too.
But additionally! The "screen time" controls on iOS actually do an even better job at muting notifications, including in apps whose notifications that I never bothered to control as meticulously. Screen time limits the time that an app is available for you that day, I have entire categories of apps down to "15 minutes" with news apps set to 30 minutes a day. The additional unexpected benefit is that this also disables notifications while those apps are blocked for the rest of the day.
I'm on the other side of the fence with read receipts. There are times I don't care if someone replies, I just want to know if they got the message so I don't feel the need to call. I also don't feel the need to send those "ok" or "got it" messages to just affirm that I received the message, because the read receipt takes care of it.
That being said, it cuts both ways. At work, if I read a message asking for something, and they know I got it, I feel more pressure to drop what I'm doing to take care of it, or at least let them know where it's at on my priority list. Turning off the read receipt means I can't view others, so I leave them on. The app does have a "peak" feature to read the message without showing it as read, which is very useful... especially if I happen to be checking it after work hours.
I too find a bright red (usually useless) notification badge (for ex) very distracting, this helps me focus on the content a ton (along with setting #header and #footer to {display: none} on 99% of sites)
Notification badges (the red number) seem less urgent when viewing the Home Screen. Content in apps (octal, Apollo) seems less engaging. I spend less time on my phone when it’s all shades of grey.
> * (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e-ink (android) tablet.
+1
After years of advocating for the laptop form factor ("use a dock at home! take it anywhere! the perfect nexus of power and portability!"), I've resolved to a setup that ditches the laptop for a stationary desktop. Easier to go to bed and get out of it the next morning, I figure.
I've definitely become an advocate for e-ink. Between Kindle for reading, reMarkable 2 for freehand, and the Freewrite Traveler for writing, I definitely see the value in near-bespoke devices.
Exactly.
Notifications are such a waste of time.
And from apps you don't care about, I've always disabled them. No more Google Maps asking for surveys, random apps throwing promotions, or spamming me about some recent activity of mine.
* remove All notifications from non-message & Calendar apps.
* condition everyone around you that you might not reply messages in time. (crucial to make above work) and ofc you have to follow that too.
* (if you have the financial means) get another device without ANY distraction what so ever, ideally disconnected from the internet (except maybe syncing files) For me it is a e-ink (android) tablet.
>I’m looking for some apps that people use and get genuine value out of. Can I learn something while I’m bored on the couch?
For me it's not about finding some app that helps me with this; I already have a backlog (bookmarks, pdf, tutorials) of stuff I genuinely want to consume yet I end up always scouring for new content, even with the gigantic backlog.
There's rarely any lack of quantity in content these days, quality maybe, but that's the fallacy that lead us to look for more/newer content rather than consuming the ones we've already identified.
So having a dedicated device for "consuming backlog" and minimizing adding more stuff to it have been a good change.