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Working from Home: How to Set Up Your Workspace - YouTube
Channel: Thomas Frank
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- This video is sponsored by Skillshare
[1]
where you can take my new class
[3]
on Building Strong Habits.
[4]
Be one of the first 500 people
[5]
to sign up at the link below
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to get a two-month free trial.
[8]
(upbeat music)
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Offices are not always
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the ideal place to work.
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They're often uninspiring,
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they take way too long to get to,
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and more often than not,
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the printer's broken.
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Luckily, there is an alternative,
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and getting to it doesn't
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take a whole lot more
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than simply getting out of bed.
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So it's more than likely
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that you've recently found
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yourself working from home,
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not by choice,
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but by necessity.
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That being said,
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as someone who's been working from home
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for more than a decade,
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I can tell you that
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working from home is kind of awesome.
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Your commute gets eliminated,
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you have a lot more control
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over how you set up your workspace,
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and technically you don't even
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have to wear pants.
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That said, it also does
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come with certain challenges.
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When there are no bosses
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or coworkers around,
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it can be a lot harder
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to stay on task
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and to avoid certain temptations,
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and every decision becomes yours to make,
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which can be a little overwhelming
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when you're used to having your schedule
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at least partly set by someone else,
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so this is the start of a series of videos
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on this channel that will teach you
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how to work from home
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as effectively as possible,
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and with this first video,
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we are starting
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with your environment,
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with your workspace.
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Now, the first thing I
wanna say here is that
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there are no hard and fast rules
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when it comes to setting
up your workspace.
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One of my friends often
works from his couch,
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and another one writes
all of his video scripts
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from a bean bag chair.
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That being said,
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I think there are two main elements
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that you wanna consider
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when setting up your workspace,
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separation and isolation.
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So by separation,
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I'm talking about having a space
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that has a singular purpose.
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You wanna set up a space
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that is only used for work,
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and then have another space
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that's used for relaxation.
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The surroundings that we put ourselves in
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have a certain amount of influence
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over our psychological states,
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and in the choices that we make.
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So you wanna make sure
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that your brain doesn't have to work
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too hard against your environment
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to stay on task.
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Secondly, you wanna aim to be isolated
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from people who might interrupt you,
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and honestly, this is a big problem
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in offices as well,
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especially since many of them
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have moved to that open office
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concept without walls,
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but it's an even bigger issue
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when you're at home with family.
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So at my house I've built
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a dedicated office that serves
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both of these purposes.
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I have a desk that
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I use for research and for writing,
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which is where I wrote
the script for this video,
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and then a reading area next to that,
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and if I need to,
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I can close the doors to that office
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and be alone in that room.
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But what if you don't have the room
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for a dedicated isolated workspace?
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Well, when space is limited,
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you can either get creative,
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maybe putting your desk underneath
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a loft bed in your room
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like my friend Alex does,
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or you can turn to another resource
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that you have at your disposal, time.
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If you can't set up a permanent workspace,
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you can get into the habit of setting up
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a temporary one each day,
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and you can even make this
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part of your morning routine.
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Have your shower,
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make your breakfast,
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make your coffee,
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and then clear off a space
on your kitchen table
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or get out a folding table,
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and in the case of the latter option,
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you also have the flexibility
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to experiment with where
to put that folding table.
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Now, my main tip here
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would be to make sure
you're not facing a TV,
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especially if somebody else
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in your family is watching that TV,
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and in general,
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don't face anything
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that is going to distract you.
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If you have to face a blank wall,
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then do that.
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But in any case,
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you can experiment
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and see what works best for you.
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Then, once you've finished
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your work for the day,
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or you've hit a pre-set stopping time,
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which would be a good thing to have,
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you can reverse the routine
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and put your gear away.
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And this actually comes
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with a really great benefit,
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because it's a way of really committing
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to the act of disengaging from work mode,
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and going into relaxation mode,
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and this, I can tell you from experience,
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is quite hard to do when you live
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and work in the exact same space.
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Now, another question that
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I've been getting pretty often
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is how to deal with
interruptions from family
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and other people who live
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in the same place that you do,
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and honestly, the main
answer to this question
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is just good communication.
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But there are some additional tweaks
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you can make to your actual workspace
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that can help here as well.
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The first, is something
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that you can steal from
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the broadcasting industry,
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which is the idea of an on-air sign.
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Radio stations and
studios often have these
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light-up on air signs
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outside of recording booths,
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which light up when
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somebody's recording or filming,
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like I am right now,
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and this lets other people know
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that they should stop talking,
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they should creep around
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on tiptoes like little cat burglars,
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and quite honestly,
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that they should stop breathing as well,
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No, preferably, but I'm guessing
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your family's probably
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not going to agree with that last one.
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Anyway, you can set up
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a similar sort of system
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to let your family know implicitly
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that you're trying to focus
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and that they shouldn't interrupt you.
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For example, my friend Martin
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uses a hue light bulb
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plugged into a regular desk lamp,
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which when set to a specific color,
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let's his fiancee know
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that he's really focusing in
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on a difficult problem
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and shouldn't be interrupted
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unless it's a really urgent issue.
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Of course you could
just keep things simple
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and close the door to your workspace,
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or pop on a pair of headphones
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when you need to focus,
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but the main thing here is that you
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and your family should set
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the system up together
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so that they know how to respect it.
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Next, let's talk about some tools
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and other physical items
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that can make a huge
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improvement in your workspace.
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Now, naturally you're gonna
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wanna have any tools
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that are specific to
your work close at hand,
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easily accessible, but there are
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a few more general items
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that I would like to bring
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to your attention as well.
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First, I have a whiteboard
mounted to the wall
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right next to my desk,
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and every night
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I look at to-do lists.
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I've a Google Calendar,
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and I write a list of everything
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that I'm gonna do the next day,
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preferably in the order
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that I'm going to do it,
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and I find that having
this physical reminder
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of my priorities for the day
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right there in front of me
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and easily glanced up at
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is a great addition to my workspace.
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I also have a second monitor,
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which is hugely helpful
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when I'm doing intensive research,
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when I'm editing a video,
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or really when I'm doing
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anything that benefits
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from extra screen real estate.
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Now, you could of course go out
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and buy an extra monitor,
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which I have done many, many times,
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but if you have an iPad
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or an Android tablet lying around,
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you can also use those.
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On macOS there's a feature called sidebar
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that's built in now that
lets you use an iPad
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as a second screen,
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and if you're on Windows,
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there are Android apps like Spacedeck
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that let you do the exact
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same thing with an Android tablet.
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You might also consider
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keeping some plants around,
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like this dragon plant
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that I keep next to my reading area
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that I think really improves my workspace,
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and keep some healthy snacks
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and drinks around as well.
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For snacks, I like to
keep carrots and almonds,
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and apples around,
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and then for drinks
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I have a fridge stocked
with sparkling water,
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and of course,
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I have lots of coffee
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and tea above that.
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And finally, I recommend getting yourself
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a good pair of headphones.
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As much as I love to blast
music over my speakers
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while I'm working,
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I think every good workspace
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should have a quality
pair of headphones in it.
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Not only will this allow you to listen to
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whatever you want without
disturbing anyone else,
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more importantly, they
can provide some isolation
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and help you stay focused.
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Now, if you live in
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a particularly noisy environment,
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then you may want to look into
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active noise canceling headphones.
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These essentially listen
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to the sounds in your environment
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and then create opposite sound waves
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that basically cancel both out
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so that you hear, theoretically, nothing.
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Now, in practice,
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are they completely silent?
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Well, not completely,
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but I think you'd be surprised
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at how much they really do help.
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When I tried my first pair,
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they were an absolute game changer,
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and they enabled me to work in many places
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that were previously way too loud.
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Now, are they gonna
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let you finish that TPS report
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in the front row of a Metallica concert
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Probably not, but they
do help quite a lot.
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So these are the Bose QC 35s.
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I've had these for several years now,
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and if they were to break,
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I would probably go out
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and buy the exact same pair once again.
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I absolutely love these headphones,
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but that said, these
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and most noise canceling headphones
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are actually quite pricey.
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I think these were like 350 bucks
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when I bought 'em.
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They're about 260 now,
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so they've come down quite a bit,
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but for the most part,
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active noise canceling is something
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that's gonna cost you a bit of money,
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except I recently saw
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that Anker came out with a pair
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of active noise canceling headphones
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that go for about $60.
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I haven't tried them myself,
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but they do seem pretty well reviewed.
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Now, if you wanna go
even cheaper than that,
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then you're gonna want to look
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into a pair of normal headphones
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that have a closed back design.
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This is different from
an open back design,
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so these headphones,
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which are the Audio-Technica ATH-M50,
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have a closed back design,
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which basically means
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that they're pretty well sealed up.
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They don't have active noise canceling,
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but they do provide a
good amount of isolation
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when you're wearing them.
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By contrast, open back headphones,
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like these Sennheiser HD 650s,
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which are honestly my favorite headphones.
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They don't have very much material at all
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other than this metal grate
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separating your ears
from the outside world,
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which means that your poor,
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naked, defenseless ears
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are gonna hear everything
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going on in your environment.
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Now, open back headphones
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do have their benefits.
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They have this wide
open, airy sound stage.
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A lot of audio files really like,
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but a tool for isolation they are not.
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Anyway, if you're looking
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for an inexpensive recommendation
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for closed back headphones,
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I'm gonna recommend the
Audio-Technica-M20s,
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which are essentially
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the base model of these ones.
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They're still great,
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but they are quite a bit cheaper.
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Now, what specifically
[515]
should you be listening to
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in those headphones while you work?
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Well, scientists working around the clock,
[521]
looking at lots of spreadsheets
[522]
and poring over data
[523]
have definitively proven
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that the best source of productivity
[526]
enhancing audio in the
world is My SoundCloud.
[530]
It is straight productivity enhancing for
[533]
Who wrote this?
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- [Woman] You did.
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- Oh, okay, barring that,
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other than silence,
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you have three main sources,
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white noise, ambient noise,
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and of course, music.
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Now, for both white noise
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and ambient noise,
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I have a few recommendations
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that you might wanna check out.
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First, is a site called Ambient-Mixer
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where people have uploaded custom mixes
[552]
that you can use to study with,
[553]
including lots of
[554]
common rooms for Hogwarts houses,
[555]
my favorite being the Ravenclaw one,
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even though, as my
girlfriend likes to tell me,
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I'm a Slytherin,
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and you can even open up the mixes
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and change the levels of the sounds,
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or even add in more sounds if you want.
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There's another site called Noisli,
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which is the one that
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I used for most of college,
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and that one also lets you mix
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your own ambient soundscape
with white noise,
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pink noise, brown noise, babbling brooks,
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rain, all that kind of stuff,
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but unfortunately, after being
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very much free forever,
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they have recently went to a paid model,
[585]
where now there's a
free plan that you can,
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I think listen to for 90 minutes a day,
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but after that you have to pay,
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kind of a bummer.
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Also, of course, there's YouTube.
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Type in basically any
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kind of ambient mix you want into YouTube
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and you're gonna find
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lots of 10-hour mixes
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that you can listen to,
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and when it comes to music,
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YouTube is, again,
[601]
a great place to start,
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not least of which because
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for several years I have been building
[605]
my own ultimate study music
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playlist here on YouTube,
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which I'll have linked in
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the description down below.
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And if you happen to be
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a Spotify or Apple Music user,
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I have a playlist called Sunday Study,
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which attempts to replicate that playlist,
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so I'll link to that one as well,
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and if you're a Spotify
user in particular,
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I also want wanna mention
my friend Ali Abdaal
[621]
has his own excellent
study music playlist,
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which I will also link to,
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and his is much longer than mine,
[626]
since he tends to put entire albums on it,
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while I tend to curate individual songs.
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So the digital environment that you build
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is just as important as the physical one.
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If your computer or your phone
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are constantly distracting you
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and pulling your attention
away from the work
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that you need to be doing,
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well, then you're really
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not gonna get much done.
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But luckily, there are some
[644]
tweaks you can make to
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that digital environment that are
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just as effective as the ones we've made
[648]
to the physical one.
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So, first and foremost,
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I'm gonna recommend actually creating
[652]
a secondary work account on your computer,
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and ideally, this account
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shouldn't have access to Steam,
[658]
to Origin, to Epic,
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man, there are a lot
of game launchers now,
[661]
or really to any other program
[663]
that you find distracting.
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You can also use a program like Freedom,
[666]
which will actively block
distracting websites
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and apps while you're working.
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And your phone is also
a potential distraction,
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possibly more so,
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which is why my main recommendation
[674]
would be to keep it
away from your work area
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while you're working.
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Oh, it did hit something,
[679]
you were right.
[679]
- [Woman] I told you.
[680]
- Anyway, keep it away from
[682]
your main work area while you're working
[683]
and when you get it for a break,
[685]
you can check it then.
[686]
If you absolutely must
[687]
keep it near you while you're working,
[688]
at least try using an app like Forrest
[690]
which encourages you
[691]
not to touch your phone
[692]
for a specified period of time
[694]
that you set by letting
[695]
you grow a virtual tree.
[697]
If you don't leave the app
[698]
during that period,
[699]
you get the tree,
[700]
but if you do,
[700]
you kill your virtual tree
[703]
and then Mr. Beast will be sad.
[705]
Now, while we're talking
[706]
about your digital setup,
[707]
I do want to briefly
mention internet speed.
[710]
If you're gonna be jumping
[710]
on lots of zoom calls with your team,
[712]
downloading lots of files
[714]
and generally trying to use the internet
[715]
to continue to earn a living,
[717]
then you wanna make sure
[717]
that your local network speeds
[719]
are as good as they can be.
[721]
Personally, if I can get
a hardwired connection,
[723]
I will always take it.
[725]
You can do a lot to improve
your Wi-Fi for sure,
[727]
but nothing beats an ethernet cable
[729]
running straight to your router.
[731]
That said, if you do need to use Wi-Fi,
[733]
at least try to position
[734]
your router in a central location
[735]
within your house or apartment.
[737]
That way the signal will have
[737]
the best chance of covering
[739]
your whole living space.
[740]
Now, aside from setting up
[741]
your environment in the right way,
[742]
you're also going to wanna
[743]
work on improving your habits
[744]
and your daily routines
[745]
If you wanna work effectively from home.
[747]
Optimizing these will help you get
[748]
a great start to your day
[750]
and help you stay more productive
[751]
as they automate a lot of what would
[752]
normally fall on your willpower.
[754]
And again, when you're working at home,
[756]
this is incredibly important
[757]
since every decision
[758]
is essentially yours to make.
[759]
Now, if you wanna learn
[760]
how to effectively build these habits
[761]
and these routines,
[762]
check out my habit building
class on Skillshare.
[764]
This class will help
[765]
you to take your goals,
[766]
which might be a bit fuzzy
[767]
and loosely defined,
[768]
and turn them into concrete plans
[770]
that can be broken down
[770]
into actionable daily habits.
[772]
Once that's done,
[773]
the rest of the class is dedicated
[774]
to helping you stick
[775]
to those habits longterm,
[777]
and the best part is that
[777]
you can take this class
[778]
for free by being one of
[780]
the first 500 people
[781]
to sign up for Skillshare.
[781]
Using the link below.
[783]
Doing that will unlock
[784]
a two month free trial,
[785]
which is more than enough time
[786]
to take this class
[787]
since it runs just over an hour.
[788]
From there it will be up to you
[790]
to put what you've learned into action.
[791]
Boy will know that there is an area
[793]
where you can ask questions
[794]
and get feedback from both myself
[795]
and other students taking the class
[797]
and since this is Skillshare,
[798]
you'll also have access to my other class,
[800]
which is all about
[801]
Building your Productivity System
[802]
along with thousands of other classes
[804]
taught by expert teachers
[805]
and covering topics like video editing,
[807]
public speaking, interior design,
[808]
and lots, lots more.
[810]
So after taking my habits class,
[812]
I highly recommend checking out
[813]
something that interests you
[814]
and working to broaden your skillset,
[816]
which is something that I personally
[817]
I'm always trying to do.
[818]
Once again, be one of the first 500 people
[820]
to sign up with that link down below
[822]
to get a two month free trial
[823]
with unloaded access to Skillshare.
[825]
And as always, thank you so much
[827]
for watching this video.
[828]
Also, big thanks to all
[829]
my YouTube friends
[830]
who contributed footage for this video.
[832]
I'll have all of their channels,
[833]
linked with description down below.
[834]
So check those out.
[835]
And if you enjoyed this video,
[836]
definitely hit that thumbs up button
[838]
so the YouTube algorithm knows to
[839]
hopefully recommend my channel
[841]
a little bit more often.
[842]
Other than that,
[843]
you can get subscribed right there
[844]
if you haven't done so already,
[845]
check out a free copy
of my book over here.
[848]
We don't have to check it out.
[848]
It's like a library.
[849]
You just get it
[850]
and you can download it.
[851]
But anyway, go right there
[852]
and you can get it.
[853]
Otherwise, I'll have a couple more videos
[853]
on screen that you can check out
[855]
by smashing your face into
[856]
your phone screen as always.
[858]
So do that.
[859]
And other than that,
[860]
go do whatever you want I'm not your dad.
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