Let’s fix up that productivity!
I have always considered myself a hard working person. I’m willing to work a lot to get the results that count. However, there is one thing that i have noticed. My work effiency is terrible. Whenever i’m online, i generally tend to have irc, msn, skype and more online. Distractions are bound to come all the time. All these open msn conversations are bound to lead to procrastination.
I’ve noticed that whilst i’m online - i get only a fraction of the amount of work done that i expected i would. This is usually due to getting sidetracked from things that crop up/conversations with others. Although it may not be a bad thing, my business would greatly done if i were more productive.
So Josh, What’s the plan?
There are some obvious solutions, like turning off all chat applications whilst i should be working. I’m not sure how well i will cope with this, as i ususally have them open the whole time i am online. I read this great post at zenhabit, which outlines tips for not multitasking.
Over the next week or so, i will start testing this out. To see how my productivity improves through less use of chat applications, planning important tasks and managing my tasks so that i do them one by one. If i start to plan my days more, things may start to get more productive, and i may get work done much more quickly.
How do you guys feel about your own productivity? Do you turn off “leisure” programs when it’s time to get to work?
Same problem here mate !
Just learn to work efficiently however you are comfortable. I find taking small breaks every hour or so to reply to non-business emails or read up on new posts in Bloglines to be leisurely without taking my mind to far from my computer work.
When constantly being disturbed while working (such as MSN boinging when you get new IMs) you will lose your train of thought constantly and it will take more time to slip back into ‘work mode’… only to be brought out of it again by the next boing.
Best Regards
If the ‘boings’ are an issue, you could turn them off. But I don’t tend to use anything when I do work, it’s just me and my notepad/book. Although, actually I think the reason I write on paper rather than on the laptop is mainly because of distractions
Yes, you can also obviously shut off the noise. Yet, Windows (if you use Windows) highlights changed Windows so you will still be alerted when a new IM is received - which is a distraction.
[…] was at school. It just shows how much more productive i can be when I’m working full time. My productivity has improved without a […]
I was like you in the past regarding IM use and distraction from the initial task I fixed to myself.
Nowadays I open the IM once in a while to see offline messages, message a little, and then close it again because I hate when it pops up or indicates a new message when I’m in the middle of something, anything, would it be watching a video on youtube or in the middle of a coding session.
I know that networking is good for business, but now I get a lot less messages/contacts since I’m pratically never online on IMs.
Cheers,
James
haha, if you don’t learn it now you will be forced to learn it in university
Josh, you may be interested in an internet start-up, still in beta, that I recently uncovered. It’s helping me get better control of my time.
It’s a facility called RESCUE TIME. It has the capability of tracking just where you spend time online. You can tag your applications and favorite websites so that time totals are pulled together. I for example have lots of sites I visit to gather research for my blog, and Rescue Time pulls all those fragments of time into a total spent on “blog maintenance,” which I use as my tag. The facility can tell you how much time is spend per day [showing it hour-by-hour, per week, per month. While I know I spend too much time on my blog and not enough writing my book, this daily visual reinforcement is helping me reorient my efforts and priorities. Give it a try!
You can check it out at: http://rescuetime.com/
Tom
I know exactly what you mean. I’m side tracking right now!
Thanks for the link, I’ll give it a look over and see if I can plan my time better!
Rick