Friction. Use it to your benefit.
Friction is the force that resists movement.
Everyone wants to get rid of it; engineers, designers, even Elon Musk and his hyperloop.
Those of you who are not new to the process-improvement and optimization game know that if you want to get something done, remove the friction.
10 seconds of friction for an hour of productivity? I think that’s worth it.
Want to build a habit of washing dishes? Put as little distance between you and the dishes as possible. Use a beautiful SimpleHuman automatic soap dispenser.
What if we could use friction to our advantage?
In these times, COVID-19 has made many homes into offices, and we literally live where we work. Within the comfort of our homes and with no bosses or colleagues physically around us, it is only natural that we get comfortable and distracted. Occasionally, of course.
Friction, like any other force, has its benefits; sometimes as simple as keeping our feet on the ground.
Everyone has built a workplace, of sorts, in our home. Have you optimized your workplace for minimum friction?
But for what things? For turning on Netflix? For grabbing snacks? Maybe you’re working right beside your personal computer?
Over these past few months, I’ve realized that I can use friction to my advantage and deter myself from accessing distractions.
My initial work setup was convenient, for the wrong reason. I spaced out my desk so that I could fit my personal computer right beside my work laptop; they were equally as accessible. I justified to myself that I could work on both computers simultaneously to increase productivity, but let’s be honest, it was nothing more than a distraction at the end of the day.
I might be stating the obvious here, but increasing the friction of your distractions, and decreasing the friction of your less desirable tasks might be able to keep your productivity levels higher than before.
What did that mean for me? Shoving my keyboard and mouse under my monitor riser and putting my work laptop right in front of it.
Every time I reached for a distraction, a brief internet surf, or a quick game of Spike Rush on Valorant, I needed to disconnect my laptop, move it out of the way, pull out my keyboard and mouse, and set back up. Realistically, this was around 10 seconds of ‘friction’, but I counted myself focusing back to work four times throughout the day. That’s four more times that I would’ve saved 15 or 20 minutes of unproductive time; that adds up to at least an hour.
