The Anti-Productivity Device

A tool for focus

I have seen a lot of creators make videos and full articles about how the perfect iPad is the one that you don’t expect. That iPad is the iPad Mini. They claim the reason for this is because it is the smallest and most focused of Apple’s lineup. Due to its size, most do not want to edit photos or videos, write articles, or power through their task manager on it. But I challenge that. I think every iPad is perfect for this, perfect as an anti-productivity device.

Anti-productivity device?

Firstly, what is an anti-productivity device? It is a device that pushes against the grain. It does not want you to do five things at once, it’s one that forces you to focus. The average computer is terrible at this. An entry-level Mac or Windows computer can do dozens of things, extremely well. This makes you feel like you can and should be doing big thinking and wearing all of the hats, rather than doing one thing to completion. As I mentioned a few editions ago, we should control our output and an anti-productivity device forces us to.

The device?

Above, I mentioned the iPad and how people tout the iPad Mini as that device. I don’t think there is one device to rule them all. Everyone is different and the device that allows them to truly focus is different for everyone. For me, that device is my 11” iPad Pro. The thing I like about the iPad is that it does best when doing one thing at a time.

For you, that device doesn’t have to be an iPad. It doesn’t even have to be a device. Last week I talked about analog tools, and how they foster creativity. While I think writing, physically or digitally, is powerful, an anti-productivity device can serve more purposes than just that. It can be used with a keyboard and even a mouse, as long as it is focused and intentional. It’s about the mindset it gets you in, less about its form factor.

Workflows

Let’s go over a few ways I recommend you use this concept with different mediums.

The obvious one is a dedicated tool, like a tablet. For me that tablet is the iPad Pro, for some the iPad Mini, and for others it is an e-ink tablet. I recommend using this type of device for writing, mind mapping, and sketching. You can do this with a keyboard or stylus. Some of these devices offer the ability to do more than one thing at a time, but I recommend staying away from that. Try to keep one app open in the foreground and use just that app to get the task done. You might have to bounce back and forth between other apps for research or inspiration, but keep one on screen at a time.

For people who do not love or see the purpose of a tablet, paper or other physical mediums are great options. Set your computer to the side, close it, or turn off the screen. Use a notebook, flashcards, or a whiteboard – to get your thinking done. Physical mediums have the benefit of getting messy. They are intentionally disposable. They are simply a draft in the process. So make sure you leverage that concept. Don’t make anything final.

A laptop might be good for others. Yeah, I said laptop. What I mean is using it as a laptop, in a different environment, to do one thing. Most of us have a workstation. A place to dock our laptop, with all our gadgets, our fancy monitors, our comfortable chairs. For this type of work, have a different place to go. That might be a coffee shop, but that might also just be a chair on the other side of the room. Close all your apps on your laptop and open the one you need. In a perfect situation, you use a tool that has a dedicated desktop application. For me, I do that work in Obsidian or iA Writer. Both have great desktop apps with very focused experiences. If not, close all of your tabs, hide your dock, turn on Do Not Disturb, and get the task done. This way you do not need another tool, instead use your tool in a hyper-focused way.

The best anti-productivity device is the one that works for you. It gets you into a mindset, it yields consistent output, it’s focused. It doesn’t allow you to get distracted or multi-task. Your device might not even be a device or maybe I am wrong and that device is actually an iPad Mini.