Focus comes through subtraction

Yesterday I took a flight and absolutely crushed a ton of work tasks in just a few hours on the plane. I got my social content and emails set for the week, and I wrote a blog, and journaled. It got me thinking about conditions for great productivity.

Working on a plane is funny. You’re strapped in. You can’t always get up whenever you want to. You don’t want to act weird. People can see your screen, so you don’t want to get distracted. There’s limited internet access. The easiest thing to do it to keep working. It’s almost more work to reach below your seat to grab your bag and put your laptop away. 

Plane productivity doesn’t come through addition. It comes through subtraction. 

In an interview in 1975, author Maya Angelou described the writing routine that helped her focus. “I keep a hotel room in which I do my work—a tiny, mean room with just a bed, and sometimes, if I can find it, a face basin. I keep a dictionary, a Bible, a deck of cards, and a bottle of sherry in the room.”

That was it for Maya Angelou. No food. No kitchen. No garden. No library. Just the bare essentials. That’s where she focused best. 

If you’re having trouble focusing, think about subtraction. What can you remove from your environment to help you achieve better productivity? Entrepreneur Alex Hormozi often describes his ideal work environment as a dark room with no windows. 

You probably don’t need another list, or another app, or another system. You might just need to go somewhere that doesn’t really have anything.