A few years ago I crossed paths with a personal finance concept called the Latte Factor and recently, I’ve drawn some parallels between it and my experience with constant distractions.

The general idea behind the Latte Factor is that frequent small purchases over 20 or more years end up being a very large amount of money. Apply some standard potential investment returns on that money, and that amount gets even larger. You can play with some numbers at the link above to learn more about that.

It’s quite alarming to see how much money those small purchases could have added up to had we spent it on investments instead of coffee or whatever else. While I do see buying coffee as a life enhancement for several reasons, I can see the author’s point. We often trade these frequent four and five dollar purchases for what could be major progress towards financial independence.

[Read more…] about How Constant Distractions Create Big Stress

In a Break the Twitch first, I’m excited to offer you this interview with my friend Michale Sevy, a fantastic guy who also happens to be an Interactive Producer, traveler, and incredible photographer (the above photograph is one of his). He shared with me his insights after taking a 60-day sabbatical from social media after a 600 day streak of daily photographs on Instagram. You can see his work on his website.

[Read more…] about Stepping Away: 60 Days Without Social Media

Earlier this year Amy and I went to a cabin home in Wisconsin with a group of friends. It was a great weekend retreat where we all took turns cooking and cleaning. We played games, sat in the sauna, talked and read books.

We decided to leave our laptops at home and that was absolutely the right thing to do.

[Read more…] about The Digital / Screen-Free Sabbatical

I had tried a lot of different strategies.

Pomodoro, blocking the site all together with a Chrome browser extension. I even unfollowed 80% of my connections on facebook so that very few updates showed up in the news feed.

I finally deactivated Facebook and here’s why:

[Read more…] about I Deactivated My Facebook Account, For Now

On March 31st, Amazon.com announced ‘Dash’ for their Prime members and it was no April Fools joke.

It’s a network connected button that can be placed around the house near items that will need eventual reordering. When you see that you’re low on toilet paper, for example, just press the button and Dash will automatically order your predetermined product in a predetermined quantity, while shipping it to your front door via two-day air.

This may seem like it would be a step forward in convenience, time-savings and efficiency—and that it may be.

But there is a major problem which comes along with Amazon Dash and it is much, much worse.

[Read more…] about Amazon Dash: The Button We Don’t Need

It’s incredibly easy to get distracted while trying to focus on what needs to get done in our current digital lives.

Notifications, popups, infinitely available new browser tabs; it can be an endless cycle of one distraction after the other.

When completing quality work, one of the most important aspects is quality of time on task. Often, the more time we’re able to focus on a particular task in sequence, the easier it is to get to a high level of focus.

But getting to that point can be quite a challenge.

Here are seven proven strategies to reduce distractions and get things done.

[Read more…] about 7 Proven Strategies to Reduce Distractions and Get Things Done