I've been struggling with my productivity lately with my messed up desktop and unorganized folders, so I made some tweaks to it to help me overcome it and be more productive.
Don't pay for what you don't use
I always kept my unused apps open for no reason. Terminal tabs running my side projects which I work on my weekends. So, they are basically the apps dedicated to waste my Laptop's memory. It also gave me a feeling that I'm not focussing on one thing at a time so these are the rules that I follow. The following will be the list of apps I use and the rules I enforced on them.
Google Chrome
I use Chrome for communication, Development, and of course to search Stack Overflow.
Let's first sort out the communication,
- Slack - I don't have a dedicated slack app (why should I if I can pin a tab) and I also asked Slack to notify me only when someone mentions me to I avoid unwanted annoying Slack notification sound (at least for me). This is my first pinned tab in Chrome.
- Gmail - Pinned as my second tab with no additional settings. I get a web notification when I receive an e-mail, I reply/interact with the ones which need immediate attention (Mostly emails from Sentry/Rollbar :p)
These are the static tabs that stay on whenever Google Chrome is open. If I have a web server running, it hangs as the third one. I'm trying to follow the 1 Tab Policy (more or like 1 Additional Tab policy in my case). Whenever the tab has fulfilled its purpose, I close it immediately.
VS Code & iTerm
I follow the same principles as Chrome here. To be honest, it's the basic principle of this whole post. Close anything that has served its purpose. I also minimize the sidebar and will always use shortcuts whenever possible.
These may differ from each other and might look simple, but these changes increased my productivity to a great extent. Now I have what I do at that moment.
I'd be happy to listen to some of your suggestions as well. :D
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