Category Archives: Miscellaneous

Maximize Your Productivity: Time-saving Tips for the Digital Age

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Your computer is a powerful tool for enhancing productivity at work, but it can also be a significant source of inefficiency. Your time is a valuable resource. If, after hours of working at your computer, you find yourself accomplishing little, you may be among the many individuals distracted by the lure of the internet and digital technology.

If you excel at time management, having schedules, goals, and structure in place is commendable. However, the effectiveness of time management diminishes if the time allocated is not directed toward advancing meaningful tasks.

This article does not aim to teach you how to organize your time. Instead, it provides tips to help you avoid common pitfalls that lead to wasted time.

Below, you will find practical and tested advice to help you reclaim your day and accomplish significant tasks with the same level of effort:

  1. No mobile phone: Not everyone can do this, but for those who can, it’s worth a reminder. Personal (and sometimes even professional) phones can eat up your time with long, trivial conversations or spontaneous invitations. Put it on silent, or better yet, turn it off!
  2. Disable notifications: Notifications can constantly pull your attention. Notifications are a major distraction; disable them all!
  3. Avoid temptation: If you’ve stopped notifications, don’t actively seek distractions like social media, RSS readers, or irrelevant Google searches. These create even more temptations and waste your time.
  4. Enhance your email usage: Use a single email inbox by redirecting all accounts there. Set filters for less urgent emails, such as newsletters, and check your inbox sparingly; perhaps once an hour. Aim for an empty inbox to ease mental clutter.
  5. Disconnect from the internet: If your work doesn’t require internet access, disconnect! This significantly reduces distractions.
  6. Avoid radio, TV, Youtube, etc.: Background noise from radio or TV can distract you. Instead, consider curated podcasts to enjoy during breaks or after completing critical tasks.
  7. Organize your workspace: A clutter-free desk (physical or virtual) helps your mind focus. Keep only essential items visible. Create a well-organized folder structure on your computer for easy navigation.
  8. Separate work and personal accounts: Use separate user accounts on your computer for work and personal activities. This separation reduces the temptation to engage in distractions during work hours.
  9. Focus your internet searches: Avoid straying into unrelated topics when using search engines. Postpone non-urgent research for later.
  10. Defer non-urgent tasks: Keep a notebook to record non-urgent tasks for later. This helps reduce stress by freeing you from the pressure of trying to remember everything.

By implementing at least six of these recommendations, you will observe noticeable improvements in productivity and efficiency. You will gain more time and energy to focus on tasks that hold greater significance.

Regularly take breaks to maintain optimal mental performance and enhance productivity. Scheduling tools such as Workrave, can assist in managing breaks and preventing fatigue.

It is my hope that this article enables you to optimize your time effectively. If you have additional strategies to share, consider contributing them—they could be invaluable to others!

Emacs: Enhancing up and down subtree movement in outline-mode and outline-minor-mode

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When editing outlined files (e.g., using the built-in outline-minor-mode, or packages like outline-indent.el, outline-yaml.el, etc.), handling subtrees efficiently can significantly enhance productivity, especially when working with complex documents. If you’re familiar with outline-mode or outline-minor-mode, you might have noticed that the built-in functions for moving subtrees up and down, outline-move-subtree-up and outline-move-subtree-down:

  • Blank line exclusion: outline-move-subtree-up and outline-move-subtree-down exclude the last blank line of the subtree when the outline-blank-line variable is set to t. Setting outline-blank-line to t is worthwhile because it retains a visible blank line after the subtree and before the next heading, improving the readability of the document.
  • Cursor position reset: After moving a subtree up or down, the cursor position is often reset, which can be disruptive during editing.

Here’s how you can address these issues by using custom functions to enhance subtree movement:

(require 'outline)

(defun my-advice-outline-hide-subtree (orig-fun &rest args)
  "Advice for `outline-hide-subtree'.
This ensures that the outline is folded correctly by
outline-move-subtree-up/down, preventing it from being unable to open the fold."
  (let ((outline-blank-line
         (if (bound-and-true-p my-outline-hide-subtree-blank-line-enabled)
             my-outline-hide-subtree-blank-line
           outline-blank-line)))
    (apply orig-fun args)))

(defun my-advice-outline-move-subtree-up-down (orig-fun &rest args)
  "Move the current subtree up/down past ARGS headlines of the same level.
This function ensures the last blank line is included, even when
`outline-blank-line' is set to t. It also restores the cursor position,
addressing the issue where the cursor might be reset after the operation."
  (interactive "p")
  (let ((column (current-column))
        (outline-blank-line nil)
        (my-outline-hide-subtree-blank-line-enabled t)
        (my-outline-hide-subtree-blank-line outline-blank-line))
    (apply orig-fun (or args 1))
    (move-to-column column)))

(advice-add 'outline-hide-subtree
            :around #'my-advice-outline-hide-subtree)
(advice-add 'outline-move-subtree-up
            :around #'my-advice-outline-move-subtree-up-down)
(advice-add 'outline-move-subtree-down
            :around #'my-advice-outline-move-subtree-up-down)Code language: Lisp (lisp)

I also recommend using Ctrl-Up and Ctrl-Down key bindings for moving subtrees up and down.

(define-key outline-mode-map (kbd "C-<up>") 'outline-move-subtree-up)
(define-key outline-mode-map (kbd "C-<down>") 'outline-move-subtree-down)

(defun my-setup-outline-minor-mode-keybindings ()
    "Set up keybindings for moving subtrees in `outline-minor-mode'."
  (define-key outline-minor-mode-map (kbd "C-<up>") 'outline-move-subtree-up)
  (define-key outline-minor-mode-map (kbd "C-<down>") 'outline-move-subtree-down))
(add-hook 'outline-minor-mode-hook 'my-setup-outline-minor-mode-keybindings) Code language: Lisp (lisp)

With this setup, you will ensure that every time you use outline-move-subtree-up or outline-move-subtree-down, the last blank line of the subtree is included and the cursor position is restored.