Two small changes have made it slightly easier for me to focus while at my Mac:

1. Nothing lives permanently in the Dock
2. I have to quit an application when I’m not actively using it for something. Nothing lives in the background.

@mrbeefy describe more! i am intrigued! just the Finder in the Dock?

@jeredb I was finding myself idly switching between applications without any real purpose. I like the visual queue that “if it’s in the Dock, I should be doing something with it”.

I also turned off open application indicators.

OmniFocus is an exception to the “nothing” rule so I can always toggle the quick capture functionality.

I've also got Globe-Q and a hot corner active to bring up a Quick Note in Notes.app if I need a quick scratchpad.

I’ll edit my original post to include a screenshot.