How to be productive and make the most of your time

I’m not trying to preach, but here you have some tips that helped me become a more productive person, especially while working on the computer. Every time you try to work there is an endless supply of entertainment and social networks competing for your attention, but you should be able to be the one deciding what you do.

Bookmarks

The most basic thing you can do is to organise your browser bookmarks, this way you have easy access to everything that matters and you use on a regular basis. Obviously you should try to organise it in folders, but an even more useful thing is to have them without the name to fit more of them and just use the logo to identify them. Here you have an example, from my personal browser:

Virtual Desktops

Another tool at your disposal in Windows 10 is to use the virtual desktops feature, with which you can have several instances of desktops opened. In my case, I have a desktop for general porpuses, another one for university-related stuff, one for this blog and the last one for the online courses I’m currently doing.

Using this feature you are able to focus on what you set yourself to do, and unconsciously you avoid opening time-wasting webpages because you know they don’t belong there.

Something similar could be achieved by using several web browsers for different purposes, because if you use Google Chrome for entertainment and Firefox for work-related stuff, when you open Twitter or Netflix you will be logged out, and you will be remembered of what you have to do, and this little resistance is sometimes enough to avoid the temptation.

News

For news, in my opinion, the best tool is to use news aggregators, because at a glance you are able to see all the news from webpages or services you are interested in, without the ads, or distracting images. They are also usually organised by popularity which makes it even faster to spot relevant news or articles. The one that I’m currently using is Panda:

For general news, Readspike is my go-to webpage, but you can’t customise because a guy made it for himself:

The last advice on this topic, and probably the most useful one is the extension JustRead, which transform any webpage into the main content, the text and images, which helps with readability and focus.

Learning

The best way to learn on a daily basis and effortlessly is to mix it with entertainment. There are many platforms to learn about any topic you are interested in, Youtube is great for this, and every day more quality content creators appear. Some recommendations I can give you after 12 years on Youtube are:

• Cooking: Adam Ragusea, Binging with Babish, Glen & Friends Cooking, Internet Shaquille, Joshua Weissman, Pro Home Cooks
• Science: 3Blue1Brown, CGP Grey, Geography Now, Kurzgesagt, Learn Engineering, Numberphile, Practical Engineering, Real Engineering, Steve Mould, Tom Scott, Veritasium
• Technology: ColdFusion, DIY Perks, HyperChange, Linus Tech Tips, Michael Fisher, TeachAltar, Technology Connections
• Music: Colors, theneedledrop
• Electric Cars: fullychargedshow, Solving The Money Problem
• Furniture making: Chris Salomone, HomeMadeModern, I Like To Make Stuff, Kobeomsuk furniture, Shaun Boyd
• Coding: Coding Tech, Computerphile, Dev Ed,
• Philosophy: ContraPoints, CosmicSkeptic, Einzelgänger, Ernesto Castro (spanish), Philosophy Tube
• Architecture: Kirsten Dirksen, Living Big In A Tiny House, Never Too Small
• Art: Nerdwriter1
• Nutrition: NutritionFacts.org
• Gardening: Self Sufficient Me

Podcasts are great for listening while commuting, at the gym, doing chores or just going for a walk, it is the most convenient way to listen to interesting conversations whenever and wherever you want. These are the ones I almost never miss:

• Economy: Freakonomics Radio
• Business: FYI (ARK Invest)
• Best podcast ever: Hello Internet
• Philosophy: Philosophize This!
• Various Topics: Making Sense with Sam Harris, The Joe Rogan Experience

The last platform I would like to recommend for learning is Reddit, where you can join communities about any topic imaginable, and you get the latest and most relevant information on any topic you care about.