In an article on Apple News that originally appeared on the Quora site, Solis explains “Five Easy Ways to Improve Your Productivity.” He starts by recounting the story that led to his writing of Lifescale.

The advice he says has helped boost his productivity dramatically is: Work in Sprints. He writes, “It’s impossible to go from being easily distracted to suddenly having complete concentration all day long. You can’t fix this problem cold turkey. Instead, it’s best to take incremental steps that feel relatively painless. (I think of this as attention hacking.) The key is to start off by setting aside blocks of time in which you refuse to give into the temptation to pursue any distraction. Think of it as working in sprints, rather than going for an entire marathon. I decided to aim for the Pomodoro Technique, which involves working in blocks of 25 minutes. But I had to work my way up to it.”

Solis’ other methods are: Use Music, Clear Away Visual Distractions, Take a different kind of break and Don’t Give Up!

His caveat under Don’t Give Up is key: “We’ve become conditioned to giving in to distractions. And procrastination is very tempting. It’s a subconscious attempt to avoid unpleasant emotions stirred up by the task we’re meant to be doing. So when you have trouble with this, which you just might, don’t give up. Keep going. Celebrate little victories along the way — like when you make it to 11 minutes instead of 10. And it might even take weeks to make your work sprints that long.”

Read the entire article at Apple News.