I’ve had no back pain ever since.Īlso another tip: the best back-strengthening-stretching exercise are ‘hindu pushups’ or ‘dive-bombers’. And I used to get massive back pain from sitting at desks. When you’re sitting at a desk, you forget to move. I get tired after standing for a while, and then end up taking a break, stretching, and moving my legs. When I don’t have one, I just put my laptop on top of a chair or elevated surface, and crouch down (like an asian ‘kimchi’ squat) and do work. I always try to do work on a standing desk. I’ve found a much better break that recharges me to be a physical one, that includes movement, lifting heavy stuff, and changing up my physical environment. In the past to take breaks from work I would just browse blogs, websites, check my email, or do random stuff.

Don’t treat it like “exercise” - treat it like a zen meditation experience.įor example at the gym, I put on headphones, bring my old iPod Nano (no phone to get distracted), and “zen out” to doing deadlifts, squats, dumbbell presses, chin-ups, or I just walk around the gym and enjoy people-watching. If you’re doing a lot of creative work and have hit a mental block, go for a walk around the block, or go to the gym. The benefit of this: less ‘food coma’ during the day, and more energy to do creative work. If I worked out during the day, or am massively hungry, I will try to prolong my fast by eating some almonds, cacao nibs (a good stimulant), or a little spoonful of coconut oil (not too much, or you will get stomach cramps).

My experiences only eating 1 meal a day.

I usually break my fast at around 4-6pm, and eat until I sleep (usually 10pm-midnight). I personally don’t eat breakfast or lunch only a massive dinner. When you’re awake, drink lots of black coffee (cold brew from Starbucks, all black) or espresso (at home, or at hipster coffee shops). Put on some earplugs (I recommend the ‘Hearos’ from Amazon), and a face mask.

Facebook news feed eradicator (don’t get distracted from the newsfeed).

Google Clean urls (easier to copy and paste websites from Google).

Adblock ultimate (use the ‘block site element function’ to further remove distractions on popular websites).

Facebook demetricator (turns off the numbers of notifications on Facebook).

Shut up (turns off comments on popular websites).

Not only that, but the following Extensions are essential: There are innovative functions like the ‘reader’ function in Safari that strips away the columns and distracting site elements of a website, which gives you a zen, focused experience: I don’t have anything morally/ethically against advertising, but I hate ads because I find them distracting. This is my theory: Google Chrome was built (and is optimized) for advertisements from Google. For extreme measures, use the ‘ Freedom‘ app to literally shut off the internet and block yourself out of it for certain hours at a time. Turn off wifi on your laptop, phone, or go into ‘airplane mode’. Try to experiment using noise-cancelling headphones (like the BOSE QC-series). Do work with headphones on, with a simple song (or playlist/album) on loop. Things I have done to cut out my personal distractions: 1. The secret on ‘focusing’ is not to force yourself to focus, but to simply tune out/subtract/remove distractions. I’ve written a lot on my phone and iPad using the ‘ iA Writer‘ app (in focus mode), where I can get into a zen-zone, and not get distracted. It helps that I can type 140+ words per minute (if you want to flow more in writing, get really good at typing without looking at your fingers, and memorize the keys).Īnother random life hack: sometimes the best writing can be done on your phone. It is a stream (like water) of ideas that flow from my finger-tips, onto the digital screen. Let your ideas, art, music, poetry flow out of you like water.įor example, when I write, I write in a ‘stream of consciousness’. The basic idea is that you want to flow like water//let your creative stuff out of you, with as little friction as possible. You want to enter into a creative state of ‘flow’ (study more on this topic from psychologist Mihalay C.) I want to give you a distillation of all of the current life hacks, productivity hacks, and random creativity hacks I have– which have helped me (and which I hope can help you!)įirst of all, when you’re creating, you want to flow– like water.

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