Hack
The Oh-so Vain Productivity Life Hack You Didn’t Know You Needed
Do you get easily distracted when working on practically anything? Is your phone a huge distraction when your focus should be anywhere but? Use the time-lapse camera recording feature on your phone to pull your focus away from your phone.
How?
Find the time-lapse feature in your phone’s camera app, choose the frame (could be of yourself or of your view), set it and most importantly, forget it.
The results
The above is gif of baby-faced me working on my thesis circa 2019, and to be honest, I wrote a bulk of my thesis using the time-lapse feature
Why?
Distraction free environment
Well, the primary reason to do this is to ensure a distraction-free work environment, wherein you can laser focus on any task.
About half of GenZ is using their phones for more than 5 hours a day, and more than a quarter are using their phones a staggering 10+ hours a day. Millennials aren’t trailing far behind with an average use of 5 hours a day, while boomers usage sits at about 4 hours.
With all of the notifications and scrolling involved, taking time out of the day to work and focus is difficult. Recording through time-lapse is an easy way to lay off of clicking.
There are of course more ways to limit the distraction that a phone can cause e.g.
- Use the screentime feature to limit usage of phone or apps
- Turn on the do not disturb feature to turn off notifications
But there’s another reason why I love the time-lapse record specifically:
Record of things
In all honesty, aside from offering a distraction free environment, the simple aesthetic of a time-lapse video is unequalable. (warning: reasoning is extremely vain)
- Performance: Somehow the recording manages to feel like a performance. I even start paying attention to my posture, making sure the video will look great. I drink more water to offer a variation in the visual. I hold my pen correctly, and so goes the list.
- Aesthetic: You can decide to record yourself or your view, either way it’s a great asset that can be stored for memories, or shared to socials. Afterall,
In the famous quote of Susan Sontag:
“Mallarme said that everything in the world exists in order to end in a book. Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”
In the past, I have so far only inspired my sister to use the time-lapse feature in this manner and seen the results.
Have you ever opted to use the time-lapse feature on your phone to improve focus on a task?
