14 Tips To Help You Focus While Working On Your Mac

When it is time to focus on getting work done you have to fight many distractions that will show up on your Mac. Learn how to focus on one app, minimize notifications, use Reminders and Notes to help you focus and much more.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some tips to help you focus while working your Mac. 
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There are many things that you can do on your Mac to help you focus on the task that you're working on right now. First let's start by talking about Lists. A lot of people find it easier to focus if they have a To Do List to follow. The Reminders App on your Mac is what you can use to create these lists. 
Now you can simply create a New List in the Reminders App. Call it To Do and have it be for today or this week or whatever you like. Then you can simply add items to this list and then work through your To Do List. But you can also create To Do Lists for projects. So you can call a list after a project and then add various tasks to that project. Then you can organize those tasks, if you like, into sections. So you can go to File and then New Section and then create a new section like that and create other new sections as well and then organize your tasks in these sections. Then you can go to View and View As Columns and then you can see clearly what you need to accomplish for this project. Of course whether it is a To Do List or a Section List like this you can always specify a reminder time, which can be the due date for something and you can even include a priority for these. 
Now while showing you that thing about Reminders a lot of you were probably annoyed, as I was, by how cluttered my Desktop was. Clutter is the enemy of Focus. When you've got a lot of things trying to grab your attention it is hard to focus on what you're working on. So, one good technique is to keep a completely clean Desktop. First you may have things like internal and external hard drives on your Desktop. If in the Finder you go to Finder, Settings and then under General you can turn these off so they don't appear on your Desktop any longer. It's easy to get to them by using Go, and then Computer, and it will bring you to the top level where it shows you your internal and external drives. 
Now for all the files and folders you may have there it is best to take these and put them in your Documents Folder. Not your Desktop folder. If you want to have a clean Desktop and focus on what you're doing then keep all of your files and folders in your Documents Folder instead. 
Now it is great to be able to multitask on your Mac by using multiple windows like this but it does divide your focus. There is the same problem when using Stage Manager. They are great for multitasking. But if you want to do the opposite and focus on one thing then you want to use Full Screen Mode for these windows. You can do that by simply clicking the green button here or choosing Enter Full Screen and then you can use Mission Control, Control Up Arrow, to see what you've got. You've got one full screen app here. Let's go back to the Desktop and make this one Full Screen as well. Then we can see I've got two full screen apps here. You can use Control, Right Arrow and Left Arrow to go between them. Notice how there are no other distractions when I'm using a window in full screen mode. It helps me focus on what I'm doing. Whether I'm writing something or whether I'm working on a spreadsheet. In addition if you want to switch between them without having to see all of the full screen windows in-between, use the App Switcher instead of Mission Control. So hold Command down and then press the Tab until you get to the app that you want. So switch to Numbers just selected here in the App Switcher and then release the Command key and it jumps right to the Full Screen window that you want without having to see all of the other things that could distract you. 
Notice that in Full Screen Mode the Dock is hidden at the bottom and the Menu Bar is hidden at the top. You can do the same thing here on the Desktop with the right settings. Go into System Settings, then look for Desktop & Dock. Then go to Automatically Hide & Show the Dock to make sure that it turned On. Then go to Control Center and in Control Center here you've got, under Menu Bar, Automatically Hide & Show the Menu Bar. Set it to Always so the Menu Bar is always hidden even if you're on a window desktop. 
Next let's talk about Browser Tabs. A lot of people have tons of browser tabs open. They are the enemy of focus because each one is asking you to return to it. Websites don't disappear and go away. It's easy to get back to them. If it's important you can bookmark it or add it to your Reading List for later on. You can also check your History to go back to one. Chances are if it is important you can easily get back to it just by going to the webpage or you can find it in your History if you like. Close all the browser tabs that you can possibly can. As a matter of fact challenge yourself to keep it to just what you're actually doing right now and not have everything else open in Tabs. 
Another browser tip is that when you're viewing an article, especially one that will have lots of ads and other elements on it you can use the Reader View. Go to View and then Show Reader or Shift Command r and this changes it to Reader View and you can focus on just the article that's on the page. 
Now I can't go too far talking about focus without talking about the Focus feature on your Mac. If you go into System Settings and then you go to Focus you can create these focus modes, also known as Do Not Disturb. So, you can just use the Do Not Disturb mode. This will silence Notifications so that you're not distracted while you're working. You can create your own Focus Mode here. So I can Add Focus and then choose one of these or create a custom one. When I've created one I can determine exactly which apps are allowed to send me notifications and which aren't. So, if an app I'm actually using while working I may want to add it to this list so I can see its notifications or maybe you just want to allow notifications from your spouse to come through so when they text you you get that message on your screen but no other notifications show up. You still get all those messages. You just won't be disturbed by them while you are in this mode. You can even go down her to Focus Filters and then add a filter and then there are different apps, like Messages and Mail, that you can filter and only have notifications come in when it is from a certain person, for instance. Then simply go into Control Center and set your Focus Mode when you don't want to be disturbed.
Also note that if you don't want to be disturbed by incoming email you can go into your Mail Settings and then go to General. You can set Check for New Messages and instead of set to Automatically, you can have it set to Manually. So then you have to use the button up here to check for new messages. This way you will only see new email when you actually go to check, not right in the middle of doing other work. 
Messages, of course, will come in automatically. But you can Quit Messages so as not to be disturbed by new ones that come in and then, of course, like I showed before you can go into Focus and then Edit your Focus Mode to not allow messages to give you notifications. You won't be bothered by that. You can, if you like, get it out of your Dock so that you're not disturbed by the Badge that is in the Dock with the number of new messages. 
Now if you're writing it's great to be able to focus on that by just being in that one app. But notice how there is still a lot of distractions here. There are all these different things that you can add to your document. There are different styles and formatting and all sorts of things that you can do with text. If you really want to just focus on writing and not worry about all that stuff try writing in a Plain Text Editor. Of course the one that we have on our Macs by default is TextEdit. So go into TextEdit and then make sure you're writing in the Plain Text Mode. So under Format it should say Make Rich Text, meaning that now you're in Plain Text Mode. Otherwise switch to it. You can see in Rich Text I've got all of these formatting options up here. But in Plain Text all I can do is write text. You can adjust the size here if it is too small. If you go to Format, Font, for instance, and I make things bigger it adjusts the size and you can make it a lot bigger. I use the keyboard shortcut here. You can also make this full screen as well. You can see now I can really just focus on the text here. There is absolutely no other distractions. 
A lot of people use Timers to help them focus. The idea is that instead of wondering when your next break should be or if you should take a break right now, to actually have that set up in advance. So, you could go into the Clock App on your Mac and in there you could go to the Timer Section. Then Set A Timer. So I'll set one here for 30 minutes and you can set what happens when the timer ends, and start it. Notice how you'll see the clock here in the Menu Bar. So this is when it's handy to have the Menu Bar hidden like it is in these Full Screen Apps. But when this timer is up I will get an alert and I'll know it is time for a break. Until then I can just focus on what I'm doing and not worry about when my next break is going to be. 
Now let's get back to that Reminders App. Remember how I suggested that you should have a To Do List. Well, a to do list only works if you actually use it. Well, here's one way to use that To Do List to help you continue to focus, even after you've set it up. If you're working on something but then you suddenly think of something else you need to do, something that is important, instead of stopping what you're doing and doing that task, like for instance sending out an email or checking something on the internet, instead get in the habit of going to your To Do List and simply adding the task there instead of actually doing it. Just a quick add and then go right back to what you're doing knowing that you will remember to do it because it is in your To Do List. You can even do this without leaving the screen that you're on. Just use Siri, "remind me to email Mark. OK". Note that in the Reminders App under Settings, you can set a Default List. So in this case I'd want to set it to the Do Today List and that way when I just use Siri to add it quickly, it will add it to that list. 
Now sometimes when you're working on something you need to have another app present to just take notes. But having a second app will just add clutter if you try to put it on the Desktop with two windows and all of that. You can actually use the Notes App without switching out of Full Screen Mode. So let me launch Notes here and I'm going to take this note and double click it so it is in its own window like this. Now when it is in its own window I can go to Window and select Keep on Top. This makes it a floating window that will float on top of anything else that is there. It will allow you to take this window to another Desktop. So with this selected, and I'm dragging it, I'm going to use Control and Right Arrow to go to this screen. Then I'm going to resize the window by dragging the right side and the top left corner like that. Now I can actually read this article here and also take notes in a very distraction free Notes window. 
Here's one last thing I want to share with you. While trying to focus you may want to drown out all the noise around you. So it is handy, of course, to bring up the Music App and maybe play some of your favorite music, maybe while wearing headphones. But if there is no music you want to listen to right now you can also bring up some background noise to drown out the sounds around you. Go into System Settings and then go to Accessibility. Then go to Audio. Here you've got Background Sounds. You can turn on Background Sounds. Choose from a short list of sounds that Apple offers and have that play through your headphones or even through your speakers to help you concentrate. Of course you can also just get your own background sounds and have that in the Music App and play that. If you subscribe to Apple Music and you search for Background Noise you are actually going to come up with a bunch of different things in here that you could use. 
There are a bunch of different suggestions that I've got for how you can focus while working on your Mac. I hope you found these useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 5 Responses to “14 Tips To Help You Focus While Working On Your Mac”

Bippie

11 months ago

I love this tutorial, Gary. I haven't used the reminders or notes apps before, but after watching this tutorial they'll certainly be used in the future and replace my hand written reminders and notes. Thank you! Bippie

Ken Nellis

Thanx, Gary. Good tips! Another way to remove the distraction of multiple Safari tabs is to move them all to a new tab group. Easy, then, to get back to them without losing anything.

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

jel888

Safari Reader tip helps me! I often wondered what the point of it was, and now I know. Thanks!

jel88

Also thanks for the background sounds antidistraction tip! Had no clue it was there! I am sharing this additional tip on background sounds because I don't want to have to turn it on and off in system settings: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/play-background-sounds-mchl3061cdc6/mac (tip at the bottom)

14 Tips To Help You Focus While Working On Your Mac

Comments: 5 Responses to “14 Tips To Help You Focus While Working On Your Mac”

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