Do you often find yourself watching YouTube videos and browsing different websites and social media apps instead of working? This article is for you.
The internet kills your time unlike anything else. One moment you are fully focused on your work and the next, you are browsing through the current news articles, stats of your favorite sports game, or some random cute cat videos.
Although no one likes it, this is something that everyone does. Even when we are not working on our laptop or doing something useful, we still check a few apps every hour from our phones. Many experts call it internet addiction.
There is no doubt that it is harmful and decreases productivity. So, the real question is “how can we stop it?”
Well, there is no one solid way but there are a few tips and tricks that can help us to avoid that. These include:
1. Examine Your Internet Habits
To stop wasting time on the internet, the first thing that you need to do is to understand your activities. If you know what you do, you can easily hold yourself accountable and prioritize.
For starters, you can draw a table and start writing down what you did during the last hour at the start of every hour. That will help to keep a track of your performance and productivity and what you have achieved so far. You can also add a small note about how that made you feel.
At the end of the day, you can review all the activities and point out what needs to be eliminated to make you more productive. You can also use apps like Checky that can track all your activities for you and help you to understand where you need to work the most.
2. Schedule Your Internet Time
Just like we schedule our other daily tasks such as work time, breaks, and gym sessions, scheduling internet time can also be beneficial. So instead of allowing yourself to hop online after every few minutes, schedule the time when you will be free to access the web.
If you think a schedule would not work but you can perform work tasks offline, you can also set up a Wi-Fi schedule from your modem. Several internet service providers such as CenturyLink internet offer this feature for their customers. With that, your Wi-Fi will automatically turn off when it will be time for you to work or study.
3. Log off Your Social Media Accounts
As humans, we are hard-wired to crave attention and the feeling of being close or important to someone. To satisfy this need, we often turn towards social media platforms. Hence checking the social media and browsing through the timeline for hours.
The best way to avoid this is to shut it off. Not permanently of course, but whenever you sit down to work or study, the best thing would be to log out of all your social media accounts. That will direct your attention towards work and allow you to focus. Another thing you can do is to block all the apps from your phone settings and don’t look back until you are done.
4. Block Distracting Apps / Websites
If your work requires you to be online, another way to focus on that would be to block all the distracting apps and websites. That would help you to focus on the tasks instead of thinking about accessing YoutTube and watching the new Venom 2 trailer.
Apps like Concentrate are there to help you with that. With such apps, you can specify which websites should be blocked on your system and which ones should be allowed. As a result, you can focus on what is necessary and leave the rest on Concentrate.
5. Take Work Breaks
Breaking your workflow and visiting other websites or playing online games is also an indicator that you need a break. When we continuously work on something without any breaks, it increases the level of boredom and decreases our ability to retain information for longer periods.
As a result, we easily get distracted or tend to open other websites. So, scheduling proper breaks during a workday is important.
You can set up the timer for your work sessions, take a few minutes break, and then start again. During that break, you can do whatever you want and get back to work as soon as it is over.
This will allow you to stop wasting time on the internet as you will be able to access the sites during your break and check all notifications. Moreover, this will increase your productivity during the work session as you will be taking proper breaks.
6. Have a Separate Work Computer
If you are one of those people who can afford to have two computers, it is always great to have a separate work computer. That second computer should not have any apps or steams where you waste most of your time.
Moreover, if you use the same google account everywhere, have a separate one for that. Doing so will allow you to stay away from your bookmarks, search history, and even the saved passwords. Moreover, it will cool down your temptation to click and access those websites.
In case you are a student and having a second computer is not possible for you, use the computers available in the computer lab or library. Since those computers already have certain restrictions on them, it will be easy for you to stay away from any distractions and focus on your work.
Summing Up
If you are someone who can’t stop liking photos, sharing tweets, or searching random stuff on Google and YouTube while working, these tips are going to be helpful for you. One thing to keep in mind is that these things will only work when you will be determined to stop wasting time on the internet. If you are not willing to be productive, no matter what you do, it won’t work.
