Extreme Mac Productivity Ideas

Tired of videos with mild productivity tips that are just minor tweaks to how you already work? Here are some extreme productivity ideas for Mac users that can really shake things up.

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Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Here are some extreme Mac productivity ideas. 
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Now I frequently do videos that include productivity tips. Every once in a while I have an idea that is just too extreme for most people. In fact, some of these ideas are so extreme you just have to be crazy to even try them. Out of all the ones I'm going to show you there are only two that I have actually adopted. Some of these others though maybe appealing to some people, especially if you're having trouble focusing on your work. 
The first one will give you an idea of what I mean. Say you've got a lot of tabs open in Safari. This is a common problem. I often see people with tons of tabs open and this can be a big productivity drain. Now to force yourself into better habits managing your tabs you can go into Safari, Settings, and then if you go to Tabs, there is a setting here for automatically closing tabs. But you can actually set it to after one day. So any tabs that you have open will close after 24 hours. This not only keeps the window cleaner with fewer tabs in it but it forces you to think about tabs more. You just can't just have a tab open and then expect it to always be there. You have to force yourself to Bookmark it or add it to your Favorites Bar or do something else. 
Now if you get a lot of email you may have different techniques for dealing with that. A lot of people fail there and just have an Inbox filled with messages. When you constantly have email coming in it can be very distracting. You can simple turn Off Notifications for Mail, of course. Turn off the badge in the Dock on the Mail icon and all of that. But you can deal with it more directly by going into Mail, and then Settings. Then in General you've got a setting for Check For New Messages. That can be set to Automatically, meaning that it is always going to update. But you could also set it to Manually. When you do you have to specifically click the Button in Mail, right here. This means you can continue working and Mail won't interrupt you telling you there is new messages. Only when you're ready to handle email and you go to it and load the new messages. 
Now this is one of the two things that I actually do. I practice something which I call Inbox Zero, which means different things to different people. What I mean by it is that every time I check my email I completely empty out my Inbox. So, for instance, if this is what I see when in go into Mail I would handle these two messages and clear it out. If it is something I can't deal with right now I can set a Reminder for it. If it is something I need to Save maybe I'll save it as a PDF or put it in a special folder. But I always clean my Inbox out. So it always looks like this when I'm done with Mail. Note what I did there is that I Archived messages. I don't bother with a complex folder structure over here. It is either in my Inbox or it is Archived. 99.something percent of the time I don't ever need to see that email message again. So why am I wasting time trying to categorize it. If I need an email later on I can always find it by searching. 
Now some people consider Inbox Zero to be pretty extreme. But what you can do that is even more extreme is you can go into Mail, Settings, and then go to Rules. Then you can add a rule and have it so that if a message is received and it's greater than a certain number of days old, like maybe just one day old, then you can move it automatically to a different folder, like say for instance your Archive folder. So this is similar to those tabs in Safari. Email messages are going to automatically Archive. This could be bad if you miss an email that was important. But the whole idea here is to train yourself to handle your email in such a way that you're clearing out your inbox all the time and not letting things hang around. The point of this rule is it for never to actually be used. It's kind of a threat hanging over you so you have to handle your email promptly. See, I told you these were pretty extreme productivity tips!
You can also limit yourself in other ways. You can go into System Settings and setup Screen Time. So the whole idea here is to spend less time using certain apps or viewing certain content. You can certainly use this to limit your use of apps. So you can setup App Limits here. Let me add one or I can pick specific apps and limit the amount of time that I use them each day. Yes, I can go in and override this. It's my account. I'm the Admin. But it takes a few steps to do that and if you're serious about productivity you're not going to override these limits. You're going to use them to help you focus more. 
You can also go into Content & Privacy and here you can limit which websites you go to. So you can add websites that you don't want to take up time viewing on your Mac. So it could be the case of simply whether you want to make your Mac into your productivity machine. It is okay for you to use another device, like your iPhone or iPad, to actually go to these things. But when you're working on your Mac you don't want to be distracted by them. 
Macs are different than other devices in that it is easy to have multiple screens on your Mac. As a matter of fact this used to be a productivity hack to actually get more screens and for a while I was even up to three screens. But then I discovered that it really was a productivity negative for me. There were more distractions. More things going on. Even if you're using two or three screens now you may want to try to going down to just one screen. After all productivity is often about focusing on exactly what you're doing right now. Having multiple screens with multiple windows is going against that. 
When you go down to one screen you may want to experiment with only using one app at a time. So here's what I mean by that. I've got Safari here but it is a window. I can have other apps open. But if I go to Full Screen Mode with this Safari window then the entire screen is taken up just with Safari. There can't be any other windows here. What if I put all the apps that I'm using in Full Screen Mode. So I've got Notes here in Full Screen, I've got Mail here in Full Screen. Now I can use Control and the right and left arrow keys or just Command Tab just as before to go between these apps and just focus on one app at a time. 
Now here's the other productivity idea that I actually do use. This is what my Desktop usually looks like. There's nothing there. I've gone into Settings here in the Finder and I've turned Off everything on the Desktop and I simply don't store Files in the Desktop folder. Everything is in my Documents Folder. So my Desktop is always clean and there's nothing there to distract me. I'm not even using any Widgets here. 
Now another thing you can do in System Settings is to set Focus Modes. So the default Focus Mode is Do Not Disturb. Really you don't get any notifications when you're using Do Not Disturb. You can have it scheduled to be in the evening but there's no reason why you can't have this on all day long if you want. After all these are just notifications. It doesn't stop things from happening. You can still go and check your email when you actually need to. It is just you're not going to be bothered when a new message comes in. You can create other Focus Modes. So, for instance, if you want to have a Mode where only a few people can message you or only one or two apps can send you a notification you can actually set that up in here and then use that while you're working. 
The next thing you may want to do is look at the apps you have installed. Maybe uninstall them. I'm particularly thinking of apps that can be distracting like messaging apps that you have on your phone anyway. So you don't need people reaching you on both your phone and your Mac. You can think of your Mac as your productivity machine. Get rid of the apps that aren't going to add to your productivity and leave those all for another device. Remember for apps you get in The App Store you can actually remove them from your Mac and add them back very easily. So let's delete this app right here. Now it is no longer on my Mac. But notice I can just click right here to reinstall it from The App Store. So it doesn't have to be a big deal to remove an app and then maybe focus on productivity when you really need to for a few days and then add the apps back. 
I've mentioned a few times about dividing things up between your Mac and other devices. Like maybe having some things on your iPhone and not having them on your Mac like some messaging apps or games or things like that. One of the things you might want to think about doing then is not having your iPhone available to you easily while working on your Mac. If you have a drawer you can put it in, maybe shut it off and only turn it on later in the day. Or maybe put it in another room.
Here's another way to encourage you to focus on your work on your Mac. Try changing how your screen looks. You go into System Settings and then you go to Accessibility. Go to Display and at the bottom of Display you've got Color Filters. So, for instance, try turning them on and then changing to Grayscale. When you do everything, of course, is going to be black and white. Think of how less likely you are to go to say watch a YouTube video when you're screen is gray and you have to go through several steps to go back to here to turn off Color Filters. Obviously this isn't a good idea for all kinds of work. For instance if you're doing graphics work you don't want to switch to black and white. 
Now another place we're distracted is when we having to search for stuff on the web. But unfortunately we have to search for stuff a lot of times for work. But you get all sorts of things in web results including, of course, lots of ads, videos, and all that. So you may want to consider alternative search engines. For instance Duck Duck Go has a much cleaner look here. You may want to even pay for a search. There are search engines where instead of seeing ads you pay a monthly fee and it may be worth it if it increases your productivity. 
Another thing you may want to do when working on your Mac is to wear headphones and listen to white noise. Some people feel white noise helps us concentrate. Plus, of course, if you're working in a somewhat public environment like in a cubicle at work or you have to work out in public like at a cafe, then your headphones are kind of a signal to other people to not bother you. Now of course you can find white noise in a variety of places but you already have it on your Mac. Go into System Settings and you go into Accessibility and then Audio there is something called Background Sounds. Turn that On and you can choose from a variety of different background sounds and it will just continuously play in a loop. 
Now here's one that may seem anti productivity but hear me out. You take your keyboard and you put it away. Turn it Off. Put it in a draw. Put it in another room. But how are you supposed to be more productive if you don't have your keyboard? The idea here is that most people can dictate faster than you can type. But only after you practice dictation. It's hard to practice dictation when your keyboard is right there and so easy to reach out and type with. So, you get rid of the keyboard and force yourself to dictate. This, of course, works best if you need to do a writing task. Now you don't want to use regular dictation. You want, instead, go into System Settings and then under Accessibility you want to go into Voice Control. You want to turn this on. Not only is this better dictation for you to type with but the commands include a wide variety of things including editing commands. So you can do some pretty high level dictation here. But it is really hard to learn this if the keyboard is right in front of you. At first it is going to be slower. You're going to be less productive. But perhaps after a few days or weeks you can get really good at it. At that point you can start having your keyboard in front of you while you dictate.
But if you do like typing there is an extreme way to do it. You can use a Dvorak Keyboard layout. Take a look at this. It looks like a regular keyboard but notice all the letters are in different places. It turns out the way letters are on a regular Qwerty keyboard, they are not there to optimize typing speed. They're there because all typewriters would get jammed if you hit certain keys too quickly. But it is actually not a very efficient way to type. The Dvorak keyboard is designed to be the best way to type using your fingers. But, of course, it is hard to learn it if you have a lifetime of typing with a Qwerty keyboard. However those have made the transition are adamant about the fact they can type faster. You don't need to actually get a special keyboard for this. You can use your regular keyboard. Then just go into System Settings and go to Keyboard. Then under input sources here, Edit and then Add, and then look for the Dvorak Keyboard. It's under English and it is near the bottom. So you add this and you can see the new layout there. Your regular keyboard is going to work like this. You're probably going to want to keep a printout or guide or something like that until you learn to do these without actually looking at the keys. Or maybe just get stickers. 
Now giving you the idea about hiding your keyboard, here's one that is just as extreme. Take your mouse or trackpad and put that in a drawer or another room or switch it Off. The idea here is to force yourself to use keyboard shortcuts for everything. It's not going to be ideal if you're doing graphics and things like that. But if you find yourself always using the pointer to select menu items when you know a keyboard shortcut will be faster having your mouse or trackpad hidden away sometimes may force you to learn those keyboard shortcuts and eventually adopt them. 
Another thing people like to do for productivity is to use Timers. We, of course, have the Clock App on the Mac. One of the items you can do here is a Timer. So you can set a timer and then it will countdown. You don't even have to keep the app shown here. It will show here in the top. The idea here is to time yourself doing tasks. So if you decide you are going to write for fifteen minutes you can set a timer for 15 minutes and then write knowing that you really shouldn't be doing anything else during that time. You just concentrate on writing and your Mac will tell you when the 15 minutes is up. 
You can also use Timers to remind yourself to take breaks. The idea here is to not just have breaks whenever you feel like it but to keep working until a timer expires. You can say I'm going to take a break in 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or whatever and then you keep working knowing your Mac is going to tell you when break time is. Then you can set another timer for 10 minutes to let you know when the break time is over. 
One last item. This is going to sound pretty extreme. It's called Time Tracking. This is something I actually did at one point. It's really interesting. The idea here is either use a piece of paper or you can use the Notes App. When you start doing a task you record the starting time and what task it is. So let's say I'm going to check email. I just go about checking my email. When I'm done checking email I then record the end time and start a new line here with whatever task I'm working on. There are two benefits to this. One is you become keenly aware of what you're spending time on. The other one is it helps you focus on tasks. How? Well, let's say that you start checking your email. Right in the middle of checking your email you remember that you wanted to check a webpage for something. But in order to do that you're going to have to basically clock-out of email and then start with that new task here and then go back to checking email in the next line. This seems really messy. So what you're probably going to do instead is continue checking the email, not let yourself get interrupted. This isn't the kind of thing that you need to just keep doing forever. Some people find it useful to do it for, say, a few weeks and then it really changes how they work and creates better habits that they can then carry forward without having to keep doing Time Track. 
So there are some pretty extreme ideas. I don't expect anybody to ever even contemplate adopting all of these. But maybe one or two might be useful to you even for a short period of time or they might give you ideas about some other things you can do to improve your productivity. I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 9 Responses to “Extreme Mac Productivity Ideas”

Jim Terrinoni

3 months ago

Very useful. Things I do similar to Gary’s ideas
1. Once per day watch a MacMost video, either new one or a repeat
2. Use a VERY small mouse which resides right on top of my MacBook Pro. I don’t need to find a desk anywhere. The right corner of the laptop is my desk footprint. When not using the mouse I push it to the upper right next to the screen to the right of Delete key. This forces me to a) use the keyboard more often and b) not wasti time trying to finding the mouse

Sheldon

Thanks bunches

Scott

Inbox Zero rermains one of the most powerful productivity tools I've evern learned and grocked. Further, it's stood the test of time, having learned about it back in 2004. Great to hear others are still using it. Thanks as always, Gary.

Bernard Caddy

So after watching this I adopted 'zero email'. OK, I've not quite managed zero, but as good as - and the other thing it's lead to I realised how much I was getting that I didn't really want, so lots of 'unsubscribes'. I know I can pull from those places when I need them, and zero mail made me realise so many regular incoming mails are noise. So I suggest an additional extreme idea - never click to subscribe to anything, always go for 'pull' when you need it rather than 'push' when they want it

Wow! Very challenging ideas!

Jak G

I already make use of Inbox Zero, for both my Gmail, and my work email. Although I do make a point of tagging/categorising all my emails before archiving them - in both Gmail and Outlook - this allows for search by category/tag. Aside from those emails I delete. I like the idea of Voice Control, but in a cubicle environment, I'm a bit embarrassed to be continually talking at the computer. I didn't know about the Accessibility white noise, thanks for that.

Fred

People keep tabs open for a month? Wow!

Esther

Totally agree with Inbox. I just helped a friend of mine clean out her Yahoo mail that had 198K emails, one half unread. Drives me nuts!
I use my inbox as my To-Do box. Usually no more than 7 -10 max. Once they are read, they either get archived, trashed, moved into a folder (that they are already assigned to by a rule), or stay there until action is complete.
Loved your other ideas!! THANK YOU.

Guillaume

If you are comfortable with the Terminal, you can be more extreme!
Open Terminal and type:
1. "defaults write com.apple.finder CreateDesktop -bool false; killall Finder": macOS will not create a Desktop at all.
2. "defaults write com.apple.dock single-app -bool true; killall Dock": macOS will only show one app at a time even if not in full screen mode.
Invert true/false to revert.
I also complement 1. with locking the Desktop folder (right click on the folder, "Get Info", check "Locked".

Extreme Mac Productivity Ideas

Comments: 9 Responses to “Extreme Mac Productivity Ideas”

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