Increase Productivity by Decreasing Distractions
Chris Garrett has an interesting and useful post up today about productivity. I particularly could relate to the part about eliminating distractions in order to stay on task. This post hit home because I have so many things going on, it’s easy to forget about priorities. Here are a few things I’ve done to remain focused on the matter at hand:
Designate a certain time of the day for emails – Would you believe me if I told you I have a couple of thousand emails to go through? Most are marked and placed in certain folders while a few are answered each day. I’m very far behind in answering email, but at least if I set aside a certain time each day, I’m not spending the whole day wading through questions and link requests.
Designate a certain time of day for research and feed reading – As a blogger I consider it my duty to read other blogs. The problem is there are so many great blogs out there, it’s easy for me to spend more time reading blogs than working. I recently pared down my RSS feeds and will probably eliminate a few more before the end of the year. Even so, after dinner is when I go through my favorite feeds and I catch up on the rest over the weekend.
Cut off some of my social networking contracts – Now don’t get me wrong, you know I’m big on social networking. I did cut out some things though, including some forums where the participants and I aren’t following the same directions with our writing. I’m also limiting my social networking to places where I can learn, interact with other like-minded people, and better my blogs.
As I told Chris in the comments, when school is in session, I buckle down and focus on work. I save feed reading, networking and email for times when it’s ok to be distracted. I also made a new rule to spend more time in the evening with my husband rather than work all night. I find that when I schedule particular blocks of time for each particular task, I can sleep a little later in the morning and sign off earlier in the evening. That makes for a happier, more productive Deb.
So tell me, what can you eliminate to be more productive?
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Wednesday, December 12th, 2007 at 3:19 am under
I can stop taking jobs I hate because the money is great. Stop answering emails and my blog comments until a given time and limit social networking until the night time hours. If I did this, I would be more productive during the day and not work all day and all night. I have tried this a few times and it felt great!
Now to keep at it!!
Great post. I look forward to hearing how others do it.
December 12th, 2007 at 3:30 amThe column in question does contain good advice, which is actually a bit shocking to me coming from Garrett. I believe he’s the same guy who recently turned me down for a gig because he felt it “might potentially be a conflict of interests” that I have my own blog and one other focused on the same industry. I thought that was supposed to be experience.
The erroneous assertion brings me to another great and obvious way to maximize one’s time and increase one’s productivity: specialize in a field and then pursue work in that field since you’re presumably more well-informed and savvier about how to cover the field in question.
I think some people call this writing about what you know, and it beats prematurely seeking work in a field you’re not sufficiently familiar with just to make some money or what have you. That can turn out to be a huge time-waster, not to mention depressing if you don’t meet a client’s (and your own) expectations.
December 12th, 2007 at 9:29 amI need to check out these social networking sites. Any good suggestions of ones to begin at? I assume you aren’t speaking of Myspace or Facebook
December 12th, 2007 at 10:00 amChristmas is a major distraction for me right now. Good thing it’s only once a year.
The biggest problem I have is sleeping too late. But then, I stay up late too. Maybe I just THINK this is a problem because it’s frowned upon to sleep late. Perhaps I should start an experiment where I keep track of what I get down on an early-waking schedule vs. a sleeping-late schedule.
December 12th, 2007 at 10:53 amMatt,
You may want to check out LinkedIn. It’s more business/professional oriented than FaceBook (more geared for a college and just-graduated crowd), though some others on this board may have found differently.
December 12th, 2007 at 5:38 pmI think I need to eliminate the Internet…that might be the only way to get any work done
December 12th, 2007 at 5:57 pmThanks for the link Deb
@Chandra - That you will find was a different Chris Garrett, I haven’t had any gigs listed for months.
December 12th, 2007 at 6:22 pmEmail for me isn’t something I can shut off. I teach an online class in the day and my “office hours” are from 8am to noon, so I have to continually check emails for student questions during that time frame.
I’m swamped this week with work, so I have had to keep my Trillion Messenger off. Usually, I keep it on to talk to my younger brother. His wife walked out on him a year ago, right after she started frequenting the area NanoWriMo write-ins, which cracks me up because she never wrote more than 5,000 words. The divorce has finalized now, but he still has days when it gets to him.
December 12th, 2007 at 7:28 pmI turn off my phone if I don’t want to be disturbed. And since my desktop isn’t wireless, I’ll unplug the ethernet connection if I don’t want to be tempted to procrastinate on-line while writing.
A comment about the social networking. Facebook isn’t just for college kids anymore. It’s becoming more popular with adults. Almost all of my “friends” are fellow writers, and it gives us a chance to know each other and have some fun. I’m also on LinkedIn. I search my contacts’ contacts for potential sources.
December 12th, 2007 at 11:36 pm[…] thing about distractions is they get worse if you don’t nip them in the bud. It’s better to miss an hour or two of work […]
December 13th, 2007 at 12:45 am[…] "Increase Productivity by Decreasing Distractions," she links to good old Chris Garrett and offers some great advice of her […]
December 13th, 2007 at 1:16 am