Boost Your Productivity with Switching Your Screens to Greyscale

I’ve recently discovered an unlikely life hack to improve my productivity while working on my computer and my cellphone: switching my screens to greyscale.

Our attention is constantly attracted by the shiny colours we get on the screen, whether we're working on a spreadsheet, coding with syntax highlighting on, or reading a document on the Web.

Switching to greyscale makes it easier to focus on what we're working on while putting our eyes at rest. There's a reason why most text editors focused on writing provide a minimalistic fullscreen interface in black and white: they make everything possible for the user to focus on what they're doing.

On Mac OS X and iPhone, you can switch your screen to greyscale by using the accessibility feature. Here's how you can do it.

Switching the Screen to Greyscale on Mac OS X

Navigate to System Preferences > Accessibility.

Then, click on the Display menu, and tick the Use greyscale checkbox.

Tada! Your screen is now displaying greyscale instead of colours. But your screenshots will retain the original colours so you don't have to switch back and forth.

Switching the Screen to Greyscale on iPhone

Switching the screen to greyscale on iPhone is a bit more complicated. The option is less obvious to find.

First, open Settings > General, the accessibility menu is the third block from the top.

Then, navigate to the Display Accommodation section.

Then to the Colour Filters section.

Finally, enable the Colour Filters option, and choose Greyscale.

That's all folks, you're now one step closer to perfect productivity! I wish you a nice weekend and hope you can fully focus on what you want to do!