Reducing distractions? Routines? Music? Automations? What's your favourite productivity hack?

My family and I recently went on a vacation trip with our camper van, and when burglars broke into it while we were having lunch, among other things they took away my Surface headphones. I didn't realise I do need them so much for my personal productivity until today. I often listen to Lo-Fi HipHop Radio on YouTube while working.

Not today, obviously. At least not through my favourite bluetooth headphones. Being tied to a cable is just not the same.

I also get distracted easily. Not only through stuff lying around on my desk, but also digitally. Opening a website like spiegel.de (German news outlet) or home assistant (home automation platform) is pandora's box to me. So I try to make it a habit to not visit these sites (or do personal things at all) from my work machine.

Sometimes it's also automated tasks, that remind me of doing things. A web crawler, a Slack bot that mentions me on certain keywords (or, in my case, URLs of events that are not yet on our database). Sometimes it's a Postman Monitor that brings my focus back to an important task.

I rely on music, good habits/practices and automations/bots to keep productivity at a reasonable level.

What's your hacks to stay productive throughout the day?