Many of us are guilty of sitting down to do some work and moments later finding ourselves browsing through photos on Facebook or checking your Twitter feed, often resulting in a shopping basket full of things you don’t need…
According to an Oxford Internet Survey last year, British people spend an average of 11.3 hours per week online at home. This doesn’t even take into account all those times we check our social media on our smart phones when out and about. Admittedly, if your job involves sitting behind a computer, it is very easy to wonder off onto social media sites simply because of boredom.
Here are a few ways to get round these procrastination problems and help get you to start being more productive online:
Break your work up and find a buddy
Sometimes, part of the reason why we procrastinate is because, subconsciously, we find the work too hard. But if you break it down into little parts and focus on one part at a time, the task itself can become a lot more simple and easier to tackle. Through efficient planning it will allow you to get work done to a high standard without feeling the need to explore the Internet. This will then lead for your work to be done within a good time frame; and not leaving it to the last minute because you spent too much time checking out other things online when you were meant to be working.
Also, having a work buddy will make the whole process much more fun and easy. Ideally, your buddy should be someone who has their own set of goals. Both of you will hold each other accountable to your goals and you can set each other targets and once you have completed each section of work you can reward yourself.
RescueTime
RescueTime is a free website that allows you to track which applications and websites you spend the most time on. If you’re a Facebook fanatic or Twitter crazy, these will flag up showing you just how much time you waste on these sites.
You have a personal dashboard which logs your visited websites onto a graph and shows you how productive you have been. You can set goals to motivate yourself to spend less time on certain websites and if you’re really struggling you can pay for a premium prescription which will block these websites for certain amounts of time.
Self Control
Self Control is an app made for Mac users who don’t have any self-control. It is free to use and all you need to do is install it, set your blacklisted sites, select the amount of time you want to be blocked from the sites, and go. This is really easy to use, and don’t start thinking you can fool the computer by restarting it or trying to uninstall it whilst it’s running, because you won’t be able to get rid of it.
Using social media effectively
Now there are many ways you can physically stop yourself from procrastinating on social media sites, but if none of these appeal to you, you can make sure that what you are looking at on these sites is actually beneficial to you.
For example, by following news channels you will keep up-to-date with global events: Something that is productive and informative. Similarly, you can use social media as a means of job hunting and LinkedIn is a prime example. It is a fantastic way of building your career prospects and developing relationships with future professional employers.
There may be a lot of negativity surrounding social media, but don’t forget they are valuable channels of communication and tools to keep us informed about important information.
By Content Assistant – India Minns – @IndiaMinns
