The idea is to maximize your brain power on the task at hand. Whatever your vision picks up on, even in the peripheral, triggers thoughts. And if what you see is not a part of the current task, you'll get distracted. The rule that logically follows from this is:
Don't allow yourself to see anything unrelated to the current task
This is what I do to implement the rule:
- Hide applications you aren't using. Hide them. Make them go away. Even when you see them in the background, it's visual noise. It's making it harder for you to figure out which window to focus on.
- Use full screen mode in apps when possible
- Only use command-tab to toggle between the last two used applications. Never use it to find a new application to switch to. Why? Because if you have a lot of apps open, you'll have to see all the icons. And your brain will have to process all that information.
- For the reason described above, don't use the dock.
- Use Alfred to switch to an application that isn't the last-used application. This forces you to type a few letters in order to switch to another app, which also forces you to think, and therefore limits frivilous app-switching.
I found that it was really helpful to avoid command-tab except in cases where I could jumb back to the last app without seeing all open application icons. Seeing a long row of icons is incredibly distracting, and it's a trigger for anything you habitually do in those icons. My subconscious dialog might have gone something like this:
"Okay, I need to go to my text editor, so I'll hit command-tab. That's a lot of icons. Hey, Skype. I could make conversation with my coworkers. And there's Safari, I can visit Reddit. Oh, Mail. I should probably look at my mail."
When I don't see that list of icons, my concentration isn't derailed.