1. I treat my computer like a penknife. No matter how useful a penknife is, you wouldn’t sit and play with it all day while you decide what to do next. You fetch it when you need it. Now I treat my computer the same way: instead of being my default location for work, I only open it with a task in mind—then I close it and walk away until I’ve picked another task.

2. I let other people curate for me. I give myself permission to miss most of the world’s endless supply of content, and only consume the specific parts other people recommend. For example, I’ve never subscribed to a podcast, but when a friend recommends one I’ll ask for their favourite episode and listen to that.

3. I limit phone time. Even with the best intentions it’s easy to find myself scrolling my phone more than I’d like. Now I use the phone’s built-in settings (iPhone: “Screen Time”, Android: “Digital Wellbeing”) to limit the most troublesome apps. For me that’s a 10 minute daily cap for Twitter and 20 minutes for Chrome.

4. I set sacred daily creation goals. I keep a list of tasks to accomplish every day and check them off when I complete them. “Get straight out of bed and swim”, “write an atomic essay”, “ship an app feature”, etc. Weeks 2-4 are hardest—after that the thought of breaking the streak feels worse than the discomfort of taking action.