---
title: How You can Increase your Productivity
tags:
  - productivity
  - essay
  - seedling
date: 9-08-23
---
This article is split into four sections: 
- [[#General Advice]], psychological or other hacks that I've experienced success with.
- [[#Easy Tools]], pieces of software or other tools that aren't the *best* option strictly, but they take very little time to set up.
- [[#Medium Tools]], something that anyone who's willing to invest a little time learning [[Essays/on-linux|learning Linux]] or some other foreign computer concept can do.
- [[#Tools for Hackers]], which are for power-user use and not for the faint of heart. Expect to configure until 3am, or to create your entire own ecosystem along a few guidelines I give you.

You'll notice that the more performance has a direct relationship to price, and complexity has an inverse relationship to price. Something that you set up that's highly complex is likely to be free, but easy and user-friendly tools may be paid, with price increasing the more performant and feature-rich they are.

Only one tool doesn't fit into any of the categories below, and that's [[Programs I Like/obsidian|Obsidian]]: a free, cross-platform notetaker that is only as hard to use as you make it. It has its own paid sync service to keep notes in parity between devices, but there's a plugin called [[Projects/Obsidian/livesync|Obsidian LiveSync]] that allows you to selfhost your notes encrypted and for free. See also [[Projects/Obsidian/home|my Obsidian setup]], where the difficulty of getting it to work varies wildly with the different components.

## General Advice
- Go to sleep. Seriously, do it. I think that mood is deeply related to productivity. [Studies have shown](https://www.michiganmedicine.org/health-lab/irregular-sleep-connected-bad-moods-and-depression-study-shows) that your day-to-day mood corresponds to the regularity of your sleep schedule.
- This more applies if your work/school has a high time commitment or a penchant for overtaking other things:
	- Be logical about your hobbies.
		- Logically think about a few of the things you do for fun and designate those as your "hobbies." 
		- Start thinking about your days in terms of accounting for work time, adulting time, and hobby time for one of your explicit hobbies. 
		- At work from 8-6? Great. Is your gym or other recreational space only open at a certain time? Block it out for that hobby. Anything else can come in between.
- This is going to sound counter-productive, but actually don't spend time setting up any of the manual stuff below. That's time you could be spending doing actual work. I use my free time for all of this nonsense and it's probably a waste.

## Easy Tools
### On your computer
Fun, helpful, easy to start using, but ultimately constrained by the fact that you can only see them from one device in today's world. 
- [TAPE](https://aeriform.itch.io/tape): a project manager for the creative minded. Cross platform. $5, less than a Starbucks, and you're supporting a really neat studio.
- [JRNL]( https://blarfnip.itch.io/jrnl ), the one by Blarfnip: Similar idea to TAPE, but for daily journal entries. I'm not sure how good creating a habit of sitting down at your computer is though. Windows only. Also $5.

### On the Web / Otherwise Cross-Platform or Collaborative
- [Notion](https://www.notion.so/): Feature-rich collaborative knowledge sharing space for whatever you desire. Personal notes and goals? Digital autogardening? Project collaboration? Done. Free tier along with a [pricing scheme](https://www.notion.so/pricing). [Free Plus account with a student email]( https://www.notion.so/product/notion-for-education ).
	- Many people have concerns with Notion's privacy, so many alternatives exist. [AppFlowy](https://appflowy.io/) looks very powerful from the outside although I haven't used it. 
	- As always, reddit is a great place for a litany of opinions on any subject. Here's [the productivity take on Notion alternatives](https://www.reddit.com/r/productivity/comments/11zj8dj/better_safer_alternative_to_notion/). Let me know if this link goes down due to reddit chicanery.
- [Zotero](https://www.zotero.org/): Free collaboration-optional research tracker. [[Projects/zotero-lexis-plus|I made it compatible with legal research.]]

## Medium Tools
WIP
## Tools for Hackers
WIP