Tip #2: In the workspace you’ve set aside for your "sui generis" work, do only your "sui generis" work there. No Facebooking in that workspace.
No YouTube, no Insta, and no eating lunch at that workspace
It is not a space dedicated to your sui generis work if you do other kinds of work there, and especially not if you Facebook there. The environment in which you do your sui generis work needs to be distinct from your other space in which you do your other tasks. Because it is the environmental cues that will play the role of the “conditioned stimulus” at the outset. Once the conditioning is established, you will be inclined to set to work simply by exposing yourself to the workspace conditioned to being a place of sui generis work. You undo all that learned industriousness if you also Facebook there or do anything else at all there.
[This is part of a series. See main series page “My Best Productivity Recommendations, Boiled Down and Annotated.” ]
It makes sense, therefore, that you should have a separate desk dedicated to your sui generis work. Or at least have a separate corner of your desk. Differentiate however you can sui generis work from all other activity. Ideally, you would have a separate computer for sui generis work. If you cannot afford a separate desk and separate computer, invest in a lamp with a specially colored light bulb and when that light bulb is on do only your sui generis work. That’ll set up the conditioning.
We knowledge workers are at our desks a lot. We eat lunch there, send meeting confirmation emails, watch YouTube, check Facebook, and listen to music; and we have typically tried to do our most important work at the same desk under the same conditions. That’s not good enough. Your sui generis work needs all the support you can muster from your non-conscious activation system, such as from rituals, habits, sacred places, and sacred tools. As a writer I have a regular desk where I do anything under the sun. But I have also set up a smaller desk in a corner of the room with a different computer, which is for writing only. I uninstalled all the other software. And so to preemptively block potential distractions, I have the Wi-Fi and desktop notifications turned off.