Best productivity method never taught us

As a big fan of productivity literature I think I have read most of the books and articles around the subject. There is one technique that I always rely to. But I never found it in any book.<br><br>Over the years I have learned to say: "Not now. Not ever."<br><br>There is a certain category of random stuff that has no value, but that you still let into your mental bandwidth because "you never know..." These things are annoying, but not substantial enough that you can truly consider them a waste of time. Examples of these:<br><br>- Checking your phone for no reason even though you just checked five minutes ago.<br><br>- Reading the news, especially if you know that you are not going to do anything about what you are reading.<br><br>- Watching infinite scrolling videos of cute puppies. <br><br>- Watching infinite scrolling videos of talented people doing whatever.<br><br>- Randomly trying to find the name of the song that is on the tip of your tongue.<br><br>- Googling something you already know.<br><br>- Opening a new tab on your browser with the intention of checking something after you finish another thing, but that you probably forget later on.<br><br>- Double checking if you locked the door.<br><br>- Trolling social media.<br><br>- Buying unnecessary crap on Black Friday.<br><br>One of the most interesting things is that you can't avoid these things even if you try. The biggest problem of these things is that they can easily drift to the real time wasters. The cute puppy videos may quickly turn into wasting 2 hours. You may go into a rabbit hole never to never come back out. <br><br>Of course, one or two of these things here and there cannot hurt anyone and once in a while it can be kind of fun. These things can never turn into a habit. These things are not just for your present time. They are in fact a waste of your mental bandwidth. These kinds of things lead to procrastination that drifts to even more waste of time. These things need to be dealt with. <br><br>If you want to be productive, then you have to be very strict with yourself. You have to take the decision once and for all. So the best answer to that is: "Not now. Not ever."