In last 10 months I became a terrible procrastinator. By the end of the summer, it had reached critical level. Whilst day-to-day work remained more or less reasonable, the long-term productivity imploded. The reason? A dramatic change in my daily routine and significantly different working style. 

Beginning in February, I stopped working 9 to 5, and, as a result the so-called 'normal working day' disintegrated into patchy fragments. The only way to get back on track was to find ways how to better organize my work and time to regain productivity.

Here's what helped me so far:

• One inbox became a necessity. Regardless of saying that the tools don't matter I found OmniFocus extremely helpful. Everything goes there - emails, short notes, tasks, errands, ideas - you name it. It doesn't matter if you rigorously follow GTD practices or not. Having one inbox guarantees nothing will slip out of the radar. Individual tasks might fall behind, but except in few extreme situations it's not a showstopper.
• Time boxing improved my ability to do one thing at a time. With Pomodoro technique it's easy to split everything into 25-minute chunks, short enough periods to overcome the temptation to do something different, and yet just long enough to get something done. After while I found that I tend to plan almost everything in pomodoros.
• Limited distraction achieved by opening email only during the time dedicated for it. Same goes for Twitter. And anytime I have a sudden, eart-shattering idea, I simply add it to OmniFocus inbox, where I could get back to it later.

  Still, I found sometimes, that's not enough. The temptation to lose focus was always there. Until I learned to switch off Wi-Fi completely when not needed. Try it. You get used to it after while. When you overcome the urge to Google everything life becomes much simpler. You begin to remember things again, and you improve battery life (laptop's, not yours) as side effect. 

• But, ultimately, the best remedy against distraction proved to be pen and paper. I bought some Pukka A5 manuscript pads and a nice roller ball, and Eureka, it worked! I re-discovered that scratching notes and concepts down on paper is fast, efficient, and much easier to visualise. Also returning to previous notes feels natural. 

  Initially, I scanned almost every handwritten page straight to Evernote. Now, I trust the paper even more and scan notes only from time to time. Event this post was originally written by hand.

All in all, these little changes helped me to get back on track, despite my challenging daily routine. That's something I can work on later… :)